Fallen From Grace
by Lucas Whitefur
Summary: Malcolm Bannock has just died in a car accident, only to wake up in the Hall of Origin and realize that Arceus was real after all. Thinking he's going to heaven, Malcolm's instead told that he'll have to earn it by helping to defeat an evil force that threatens to destroy the Pokemon world. However, there's one thing Arceus didn't tell him; he'll have to do it as a Lucario. TF.
1. Cars Don't Float

**I had this idea a year and a half ago, but it ultimately didn't work out. I outlined this one quite a bit more carefully.**

 **Hello, everybody, this is SnowLucario, and I wrote this all in the lobby of my hotel, somewhere in Latin America. It's been a pretty good vacation so far; eating a lot more healthily than I normally do.**

 **I plan to update this story on Saturdays and Tuesdays, starting today. Enjoy.**

 **Current music: Love Me - The 1975**

* * *

Hello.

Before you read my story, you should probably know a little more about me. They always say that it's good to have a little bit of background, and believe me when I say that that is the case.

My name is Malcolm Bannock. It's a pretty formal-sounding name, and I really like it that way. My family has always been rather traditional in some ways.

I live in a small town somewhere in New England. You don't really need to know where; that's a bit personal.

At least, I _used_ to live there. I don't live there anymore...nor do I live anywhere on the planet we like to call Earth. Could you even call it _living_ if you're...well, I won't say it yet.

I used to be nineteen years old. I say _used to_ because I am now, to put it one way, forever young.

At this point, you might be asking, "Malcolm, why you got a twelve-car garage and you only got six cars?"

Just kidding. It's more likely that you'd ask me, "Malcolm, why do you keep on talking that way? You make it sound like you're dead".

Well...that's the thing. I _am_ dead. This is my story.

* * *

My alarm clock starting blaring at the regular time of 6:15 AM. Fortunately, I was a morning person much of the time, because I had to get up early for school today.

 _Good thing it's my last day,_ I thought. _Otherwise, I just don't know what I'd do._

It was my last day of high school, and, while I did like the friends that I had made, I was glad that it was about to be over. I had a gap year planned, during which I would most likely get a job of some sort. But I wasn't worrying about that just yet.

Rolling over, I reached for my iPad and silenced my alarm, which was blaring "Devil In A Midnight Mass" at full volume. I did love that song, but it did hurt to have it play so loudly, since it's already a pretty loud song as is.

I got up and brushed my teeth before getting dressed for the day. I chose a pair of khaki pants and a fleece shirt. Since today was my graduation ceremony, I decided that it would make sense to be a bit more fancy than I normally would.

Once I was done with that, I decided that I should go upstairs. I had a purpose for this, of course; I wasn't just doing it because I felt like it.

 _I should probably go wake up Angelina,_ I thought.

Angelina Hawley was my best friend at school. I'd met her at the start of high school, and we'd gotten fairly close during that time. She was very friendly, and that was most definitely a quality I appreciated in any friend.

Even though she was my best friend, I decided that I'd wake her up by annoying her slightly. She absolutely hated the song "Brony Style (Ima Pedophile)", so I decided that I'd blast it on full volume.

I smiled to myself. The idea was just brilliant. The expression on her face was going to be absolutely priceless, and she wouldn't even be too mad at me afterwards.

With that, I started the walk up the stairs to the third floor of my house. Angelina had stayed over at my house that night in order to celebrate the fact that we were both about to graduate. Both of us couldn't wait to get our diplomas.

I turned on the song. I was going to barge into the guest room on the third floor and laugh as the song blasted out of my iPad. Yes, that was what I was going to do, and it would be epic.

Once I was on the third floor, I gingerly stepped towards the door behind which my friend was sleeping. Opening the door, I heard her shriek.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!" she yelled at me, and I couldn't help but giggle at what I had done. (Yes, I'm sadistic like that).

"It's a song" I replied.

"Yeah, by Rucka Rucka Ali. You need to stop playing stuff like that to me; it's really offensive".

I laughed. "This is jokes. Not for kids".

Angelina shook her head, now starting to smile. "I see you're going into it like that. Very well, then".

I smiled. "Our last day of school. You looking forward to graduation?"

She nodded. "Very much so. I'll finally be free of everyone, including you".

I winked at her. "You'll always be stuck with me". Unless, of course, we went to different colleges, but I wasn't going to mention that part to her.

After that, I waited for her to get ready for the day. Once she had done that, we both went together downstairs, where my mother was making pancakes for breakfast.

"Good morning, guys" my mother said, motioning towards the griddle. "Congratulations on finishing high school".

"Good morning, Mrs. Bannock" said Angelina. She always liked to be formal, calling people by their last names whenever she knew them, even when it wasn't the most polite thing to do. I was somewhat annoyed by that whenever she did it, but I was sure she meant well.

"Thanks, Angelina" my mother replied, flipping one of the pancakes that had turned golden brown on one side.

I looked at the pancakes, which appeared to be the ideal shade of golden brown for human consumption. "Those look delicious".

"Yeah" she said. "Sit down".

Angelina and I sat at opposite ends of the table. Even though we were merely platonic friends, I would be kidding myself if I didn't admit that I did have some feelings for her.

Were they merely platonic feelings, or were they feelings that I was romantically attracted to her? I didn't know, and I didn't want to ask her in order to test that theory out. I was a little scared to do that.

With my mother watching, we ate breakfast together, and I was right; they really were good pancakes.

While we were eating, my mother asked me if I wanted to do anything with Angelina after the graduation ceremony. Even though this was a small town, there was a good amount of things to do in the nearby city, which was much larger.

"I think we might go bowling" I said. I then turned to Angelina and asked, "Is that something you'd like to do as well?"

She nodded, and so we'd made our decision. We were going to go bowling after the graduation ceremony.

 _More time with Angelina...is that something I really want, if I'm obsessing over her this much?_

I couldn't cancel on her now, because that would simply be considered rude. Instead, I followed Angelina out to the driveway, where she got into the passenger seat of my car, and I got in the driver's seat.

I'd had my license for two and a half years now, and I was very confident in my ability to reach my school without incident; after all, I'd done it hundreds of times before.

As it turned out, however, overconfidence can be a mistake. In my case, a _fatal_ mistake.

As soon as both of us were buckled in, I started the engine and backed out of the driveway, checking for any squirrels that would be coming out of their hiding places. That was one thing you always had to be mindful of whenever you lived here, because my town is somewhat forested.

"Graduation, here we come" I said.

* * *

It was when we reached the bridge that everything went wrong.

Now, if you're a resident of my town, you're familiar with the bridge. Everybody drives across it on their commute, and, typically, not much of note happens on it. You drive across to the other side, and it's as simple as that. It's over a wide river, so there is a nice view, but you really shouldn't be looking at it if you're driving.

However, today, there was a lot more traffic than usual. It took only a few seconds to realize why this was.

The engine of a car on our side of the road had clearly burst into flames, setting up a large car fire. There was a fire engine in the middle of the bridge, and a firefighter was getting out in order to put the flames out.

I screamed in terror. If any of the flames spread to the bridge, the bridge could crumble very easily, sending ours and several other cars, as well as a fire engine, tumbling into the river below.

Angelina had remained remarkably calm through this, but she looked a lot more worried as soon as she saw that I was scared.

"It'll be fine" I said. "Sorry for screaming".

"It's okay" she replied. "Pay attention, Malcolm!"

I didn't realize it, but my attention had drifted away for a split second...which had been enough to crash into the burning car.

Angelina appeared to have been knocked unconscious immediately, which might have been the best thing for her, because there is no way she would have wanted to be conscious for the horrible events that occurred next.

I didn't know what to do. My car was on fire, and it was starting to get extremely hot inside of it. My heart was beating extremely quickly, as though it were trying to get in a lifetime of beats in the next few seconds.

Somewhere in my crazy mind, I decided that the best way for my car to cool off would be to drive off the bridge.

So I did that. Right into the water, fifty feet below.

The instant of free fall was terrifying; my stomach dropped far more than it even would on a roller coaster.

The car splashed into the water and began to sink.

 _Oh, fuck,_ I thought. Of course, cars don't float. My idiot brain should have realized that before I'd decided to drive off of a bridge.

I weighed my options. The car would fill with water very soon, and it would be very difficult to escape in that scenario. I did not know how deep the water was, but it was definitely deeper than I'd ever dived before.

 _I'm screwed._ That was the only conclusion I could come to.

I could have tried to open the door, but my life would not have been worth living if I was known as the person who left Angelina to die in a car in the bottom of a river.

Soon, the car began to fill with water, and I was panicking more. I'm already terrified of confined spaces, and, when said confined space is becoming impossible to breathe inside, I'm even more terrified.

I looked over at Angelina. She wasn't breathing. Then again, neither was I, and I would be unconscious as well before long.

And dead very soon after that.

I felt my lungs begin to fill with ice, but I didn't know if it was due to the cold water filling my lungs or the dread that I would soon be deceased. And I could have prevented it, dammit.

There was that ice-cold realization that Angelina had died, that I _would_ die, because of my stupid actions.

And then there was nothing.


	2. Arceus

**The chapters will get longer than this, I promise. And I decided that I just couldn't wait to post these chapters, because I have a lack of self-control.**

 **Currently on a bus traveling through the rainforest, as I write this. It's quite nice, seeing all these small towns.**

 **Current music: Rusted From the Rain - Billy Talent**

* * *

First, there was nothing. After all, I had been rendered unconscious by the fact that I could no longer breathe inside my car, which was sinking very quickly into the river.

I hadn't thought, when I had passed out, that I would ever wake up again. After all, I don't believe in any sort of afterlife; at least, I _didn't._ I was an atheist, through and through.

I'd barely even considered the possibility that I might have been wrong, and yet…

I regained consciousness as I was falling from the sky.

 _This makes no sense,_ I thought. _Wasn't I in the middle of a river?_

Perhaps I'd sunk so far in the river that I'd ended up in the middle of the Earth. Maybe the "hollow Earth" theory was right, and I'd soon find myself in a blazing-hot world filled with jungles and a second sun that shone day in, day out; indeed, there would be _only_ day.

Somehow, I didn't think it was that either.

More to the point, however, I quickly realized that if I didn't do something to slow my fall, I was going to die.

 _Again?_

Yes, I was going to die for the second time. There was no question in my mind that I had died when my car had sunk to the bottom of the river. Had I managed to survive that, there would have been something seriously wrong with this universe.

I fell past clouds and bright blue sky. For a while, I didn't know if I'd ever reach the bottom. Would this fall simply take me forever?

 _If this is the afterlife, it's a pretty lame one._

Finally, the clouds parted, and I saw that I was falling towards a mountain. A tall mountain, capped with snow even in June. At least, it had been June when I'd died. A hundred years could have passed since then.

Further and further I fell, until I could see that the stained-glass window on the palace, the one that opened up to the sky, was directly in my trajectory. If nothing changed about the direction I was falling, I would crash right into it.

Fortunately, my fall inexplicably slowed. I was now descending a lot more gracefully, much like Florence Welch does in the music video for "No Light, No Light".

The crash into the window didn't hurt, but it was rather jarring. Glass in the colors red, green, and yellow scattered all over the place, and I floated to the bottom of the cathedral.

As my feet touched ground, I realized for the first time that I was naked.

 _Fuck,_ I thought. _I'm in the middle of a cathedral, in the nude. What the hell do I do now?_

No sooner did I realize this than an outfit appeared out of thin air on the floor right next to me. A pair of boxer shorts, long gray socks, navy blue sweatpants, and a red golf shirt with white stripes.

Wasting no time, I quickly pulled those clothes on. I couldn't see myself; I didn't have a mirror, but I didn't need one. I could tell that my hair had been blown all around by the wind as I'd fallen from the sky.

I shook my head, and, almost immediately, my hair reverted back to how it normally was. Now, through my brown mane of hair, I looked at the cathedral/palace in which I had landed.

The whole area was a silvery white color. There were several columns that, while taller than I was, did not come close to reaching the ceiling, which was a good twenty meters above me. It was very cold in the palace, much like it was in my old, drafty house during the winter.

Shivering, I walked through the hallway, towards a set of steps that had been chiseled out of the granite. I could now tell that it was granite that they had been made out of, as that's the same material that my kitchen counter back at home was made from.

That raised another question, however.

 _Where the hell am I?_

This was a cathedral somewhere, I could tell that much. I could have been in London or Paris or somewhere else in Europe, since those places tended to have a lot of cathedrals. Granted, neither of those were on top of a mountain.

 _It also shouldn't be this cold in Paris during the summer._ I was reasonably confident in that assumption.

Still shivering, I continued my walk towards the door at the far end of the hallway. It was probably only a hundred yards or so from one end of the room to the other, so only a couple of times larger than your average church sanctuary. However, when you're as cold as I was, it might as well have been a lot further than that.

I walked up the stairs, a difficult task when you're shivering as much as I was. And, almost immediately afterwards, it hit me, with an intensity so great that I almost keeled over backwards and fell down the stairs.

A sense of authority, a sense that I was going to be punished for something I'd done. It hit me like a ton of bricks; indeed, I half expected a ton of bricks to come crashing down and crushing me as punishment.

The room in front of me, although I couldn't see it yet, radiated _power_ somehow. Even though I wasn't religious, I knew enough about various afterlife beliefs to know that, in many of them, a deity judges your life after you die and sends you to heaven if you're virtuous, and hell if you're not.

Almost immediately, an extreme amount of anxiety hit me. You've certainly felt anxious before, but let me tell you something.

 _Nothing in the world_ can compare with the knowledge that you might be sent directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200, in just a few minutes. I felt like I was going to faint, but I pressed on.

I walked through and closed the goddamn door.

* * *

The room I had stepped into appeared to be some sort of throne room. This didn't surprise me, since I'd had that sense of authority. If this really was some supernatural being, it would make sense that I'd have that feeling.

This room was even more vast than the first. It was the length of three football fields and at least two hundred feet in height.

And I was terrified. The feeling of impending justice was far more intense still here, and I worried that I'd be crushed by it. Not just emotionally, but _physically_ crushed once I was sent to hell.

 _Please, God,_ I thought. _Have mercy on me._

I kept walking towards the end, and the being I spotted didn't look like the Christian version of God. Indeed, it didn't look like any form of God that I had ever been familiar with.

It was a large, white, stag-like creature with a large golden wheel around its middle. I'd seen a picture of it before, but I'd always thought that it was fictional.

 _But no._

I was standing in front of Arceus, the deity of the Pokemon world. I couldn't believe it.

I'd never played any Pokemon games, and I wasn't too familiar with them. However, I did know some things, including that Arceus was the one who called the shots in this world.

 _Well,_ I thought, _that's one way to make an entrance._

As I continued to walk towards the end of the room, I became more and more self-conscious. Arceus knew absolutely everything about me, even more so than my parents. He could sense every single thought I was having, had had, and _would_ ever have.

"Come closer, Malcolm Bannock" announced a booming voice. I knew instinctively that it was the voice of Arceus; there was nobody else there who could have made such a sound, such a beautiful and terrible sound.

I reached the end eventually and saw that Arceus was looking directly down at me. It suddenly dawned on me just how large the deity was.

"Do you know why you are here?" Arceus asked me.

It didn't take a genius to figure it out, and I certainly wasn't one, not if I'd driven my car off the cliff and led myself and Angelina to our deaths.

"Yes" I replied. "At least, I think I do".

"Tell me".

"Well...I think I'm dead. No, I _know_ it" I replied, feeling increasingly nervous. Now could be the moment that Arceus sent me to hell, and I was going to live the rest of eternity in constant anguish.

"You are dead, Malcolm Bannock" the deity replied casually, as if he were stating what the weather was like.

 _It shouldn't be this simple,_ I thought. _Arceus wouldn't drag me here if he didn't have something important to tell me._

"You know who I am, correct?" he asked me.

I nodded. "Arceus, the creator of all things".

"That is right. However, it is also my job to judge souls who pass through my palace. And, let me tell you, in school you may have an A, but in real life you have a B+".

 _Uh...what?_

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"I mean", he replied, "that your life has been a mixed bag for the most part, and I don't know what to judge you on. I could judge you merely on your merits, in which case the results would be inconclusive. There's not enough good, nor is there enough evil, to send you to either heaven or hell".

I was feeling much more relieved now. This could just be considered my dying dream, and then I'd go into oblivion. I'd never have another thought again, and I could simply sleep for eternity, much like I'd always thought I would.

Right now, that sounded pretty sweet, especially compared to the idea of going to hell. I'd been mentally prepared for it for a while, even if I had only died very recently.

Still, though, there was something he wasn't telling me, something that I felt like I didn't really want to know.

 _If not heaven or hell, what will my fate be?_

I didn't consider myself an expert on religion by any means, but I had heard of purgatory, the place where souls who are neither virtuous enough for heaven nor sinful enough for hell are sent. It was generally considered a very scary place, one that would cleanse the soul to prepare them for heaven.

"Well", I asked eventually, having lost my nerve completely and really wanting to know my fate, "what will happen to me, then?"

"I'm not done" Arceus continued. "You were in the car with your girlfriend, Angelina Hawley".

"She's not my g-".

"DID I SAY YOU COULD INTERRUPT ME?" Arceus boomed. "I'll tell you something, Malcolm Bannock: I may be merciful right now, but _let me catch you saying anything negative about me in my presence, and I'll have your ass"._

I assumed that, by "having my ass", he meant sending me to hell, an outcome I was eager to avoid by any means necessary. The fear I'd had before had returned with a vengeance.

I didn't say anything more. I didn't want to be sent to hell on a whim, dammit.

"In any case", Arceus continued, "as a result of your stupidity and impulsivity, both you and Angelina were killed. An innocent life was lost, and that is disgraceful to me. That is the main reason you cannot go to heaven...at least not yet".

The deity snapped his fingers, and immediately an enormous wave of guilt washed over me like a raging river. I felt like I was going to lose consciousness, overwhelmed by fear and guilt and shame, as those were the three negative emotions I was experiencing.

 _Arceus doesn't need to build a hell,_ I thought. _He can just make me experience all these negative emotions, and it'll be just as effective a hell as anything else he could cook up._

 _But is emotional pain worse than physical pain?_

I didn't know. All I did know was, I very much wanted to be out of the presence of Arceus, no matter my ultimate fate.

"You may speak now" he said to me.

In spite of his permission, I waited a few moments, weighing my options as to what to say. Eventually, I replied with, "What is going to happen to me if I'm not going to heaven or hell?"

There was a twinkle in his eyes, and, for the first time, he looked somewhat... _relieved?_

I was surprised by that. To me, being relieved implies that you had once been worried, and how could an immortal deity like Arceus worry about anything? Wouldn't he never have any reason to fear for his life, and, if he was all-powerful, couldn't he solve any problems that arose himself?

 _Oh, well,_ I thought. _I'm sure he'll explain it somehow._

"I thought you'd never ask" the deity replied. "Truth be told, Malcolm Bannock, there is a way you can prove your virtue. If you are able to do so, you'll be sent to the highest level of heaven, as you will truly deserve it".

 _Is this a trap?,_ I wondered.

Arceus was telling me that, in order to go to heaven, I had to prove my virtue somehow. I wasn't sure how I was going to do that, but I supposed that he'd be explaining it to me soon enough.

I was afraid to ask, but I did it anyway. "How am I going to prove my virtue to you?"

There was another gleam in Arceus's eye. "It's a task. There's something I'd like you to do for me, something that is vitally important to both the survival of both the mortal world and the immortal world".

 _The immortal world needs something to survive?,_ I wondered. _But how can it possibly - it's the IMMORTAL world!_

"What is that?" I asked, deciding to be as cautious as possible when I was around Arceus. Even saying that much felt dangerous somehow.

"It's...well, let me show you".

The deity snapped his fingers, and everything went black.

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who has supported this story thus far, and I'll see you next time, where we will meet the threat that Arceus is speaking of.**


	3. Matamoros

**I wrote this chapter in a cabana overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Let me tell you, this is a beautiful country, and I will miss it very much. At the same time, it will be nice to return stateside again.**

 **Thank you all for 11 follows! That's incredible for a story this young, or so I would think. Since the plan is for this to be 24 chapters long, I'm very pleased with that number.**

 **Enjoy the chapter, and please don't forget to review.**

* * *

When I opened my eyes again, I was somewhere else.

That might sound cliche to you, or anyone else who might be reading this. However, it really was true, and I had no idea what had happened for a few moments.

But then I realized I was standing right next to Arceus, who was floating in midair, looking downwards.

At first, I thought that Arceus was looking down at _me,_ but then I realized that he was looking at the events happening before him.

"Watch" the deity commanded me, and I felt compelled to do it. If this was some form of charmspeak he was using on me, it was very, _very_ effective, absolutely impossible to resist.

There was a street before me, one that appeared to be in an urban area. The surroundings also looked rather Mediterranean in terms of the architecture. It was, of course, hard to tell that, but I had a feeling that Arceus was going to show me something that was happening in the Pokemon world.

I saw two people there. One was a man who was maybe in his thirties, with red hair and a short beard. The other was a young man, probably 15 or 16 years old, standing next to him. The boy had an olive complexion and black hair, and had a slightly giddy smile on his face.

The man was handing the boy what looked like a belt, with six red sticks around it like sashes. The sticks looked almost like very undercooked and massive hot dogs, but I knew better than that. I knew that they were something that, if you ate, you would die to regret it.

 _They're sticks of dynamite. That's a suicide vest._

Almost immediately, I was filled with horror. The very idea that someone would blow themselves up to kill other people was terrible to me. I'd of course heard about the various suicide attacks that would occur back in my own world, and they'd always broken my heart.

However, now I was absolutely freaking out. I was seeing it happen right in front of me. The word "simulation" slapped casually onto the lower right corner of the screen didn't make me feel any better, either.

The man was nodding at the younger boy, appearing to be giving him some instructions for what to do. However, I didn't need to hear what he was saying in order to know what he was going to order the boy to do.

The boy was going to run into a crowd and detonate the suicide vest.

Suddenly, a group of five people appeared in the street, roughly a quarter mile away from the two men. The older man looked at the younger man and nodded. "Go fast!" he exclaimed, loud enough for the boy to hear but not nearly loud enough for the others to hear.

The boy began running as quickly as he possibly could towards the crowd. I tried to look away, but realized that I couldn't.

 _Arceus is making me see this,_ I realized in horror.

Indeed, the deity was doing so. No matter how hard I tried to turn my eyes away from the horrific scene I was seeing unfold, they stayed locked in place, glued to the TV screen.

The sticks of dynamite were getting smaller and smaller. Before long, they would go off.

I couldn't quite tell _when_ they would go off; I'm not exactly an expert in weaponry. There's one thing I did know, however, and that was that the bombs would definitely go off before the boy could reach the group of people.

"Oh snap!" the man yelled, which was not the reaction I would have had to that situation.

I'll spare you the gory details, but the boy did not survive. He exploded into several bloody pieces, just a bloody mess on the street.

Arceus took our what looked like some kind of TV remote and turned off the screen. "I think that should be enough for now, don't you think?"

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

The deity looked at me sternly. "Did you not see what just happened?"

I sure as hell _had_ seen it. That image, of the boy running down the street towards the crowd in order to blow them up, was one that would be burned into my retinas forever. I wouldn't soon forget it. Not now, and not ever.

"Why?" I asked Arceus. "Why did that boy just...he's younger than me!"

"Indeed" the deity replied. "He's only fifteen years old, and he just killed himself in an attempt to kill others".

"So you mean…".

"Yes, yes" Arceus said matter-of-factly. "Those events really did happen. That boy exploded, just like a Note Sette".

"Note Sette?"

"Have you heard of the Note 7 battery recall incident?"

I hadn't, and I felt stupid for that. I felt like I should have known it, just because I spent so much time looking at my phone back in life.

 _It feels so weird to be thinking in terms of what happened back in life. This is my afterlife._

It was hard to cope with that idea, but I knew that I would need to eventually.

And I'd caused Angelina's death as well...I could not, _would not,_ stop feeling guilty for that. I'd never see her again, not now.

"Whatever" Arceus continued, noticing that I hadn't responded. "The point is, this is happening due to the actions of Matamoros".

"Mata...what, now?"

"Matamoros, also known as the Conqueror, as that is his goal. I'll show you what he looks like if you want".

I felt like I didn't particularly want to know, but, at the same time, I didn't want to say no. Plus, I probably _needed_ to know, so I said, "Sure. Show me, Arceus".

"Very well, then. I will show you Matamoros".

Everything went black again, with Arceus snapping his fingers.

When I opened my eyes, I was in the bottom of a dark dungeon. It was very hard to see around it, but I could tell where the walls were, because...I just could.

The dungeon was _enormous,_ large enough to hold a fire-breathing dragon. No sooner had I had that thought than the tail of one appeared right in front of me.

The first thing I noticed was a cord with stripes alternating between golden yellow, fire engine red, and indigo. It was approximately the width of a zip line cable, and I didn't think much of it at first.

Following it with my eyes, I saw that it twisted around and got much thicker. Soon it was six inches thick, and then a foot thick.

There was little doubt in my mind that, from end to end, the tail was at least a mile long. It was just twisted up so much that it must've been hard for whatever creature it was to move around.

And then I saw its head, and I nearly fainted. Indeed, I probably would have had I not already been kind of unconscious.

It was the most terrible thing I'd ever seen; the eyes, which were chartreuse in color with black pupils, were the size of manhole covers. The dragon had an expression of absolute malice on its face. He clearly didn't care who he hurt, or how many people he hurt, if it helped him get his way.

"Yesssss" the dragon hissed, sounding more like a snake than a dragon. Then again, given just how insanely long his tail was, he might have been a cross between the two forms.

The voice was decidedly male, though, confirming what I'd already guessed about his gender.

Arceus tapped me on the shoulder. "He can't see us, just so you know. We're safe right here".

 _This dragon is pure evil,_ I thought. _Is he the one responsible for the boy blowing himself up in the middle of the street?_

 _Don't be silly,_ the rational part of my brain said. _The boy himself did that. It's not the dragon's fault at all._

However, this dragon was so huge that he might have defied all laws of logic; at least, I saw it that way. Even though Arceus had told me that I was safe here, I was still terrified.

"Ah, yes" the dragon hissed once more. "I am Matamoros, the Conqueror. Soon, I will rise, and then your puny little worlds will come to a close!"

The dragon speaking was one of the worst sounds I thought I'd ever heard. In addition, he had very bad breath. Just the action of him talking released a putrid cloud of steam that smelled like a hot spring, like rotten eggs.

Even if Matamoros couldn't _see_ us, that didn't exactly make me feel any better. For all I knew, he might breathe fire into a location he didn't know we were in. Arceus would probably be fine, since he was immortal, but I'd be toasted like a marshmallow.

Then Arceus tapped me on the shoulder again. "We're not actually here, Malcolm Bannock. We can see him, but he can't see or feel us. He's not going to get to us".

That made me feel slightly better, but only slightly.

And then Matamoros breathed fire, and I forgot all about how I was supposedly feeling better about this situation.

Out of all the horrible noises the dragon had made, this one was by far the worst. At first, he sounded like an asthmatic having an attack and trying to take a deep breath. But it soon became far worse.

With an overpowering odor of rotten eggs, Matamoros let out an enormous breath of fire.

The fire wasn't orange. Instead, it was a very bright blue (for those who are curious what it looked like, it was roughly #93D2FC). It looked icy, but I knew better.

When I was younger, I'd once burned myself on the kitchen stove when I'd thought that blue fire was cooler than orange fire. Of course, that was not the case, and I'd soon lived to regret it.

Indeed, the room's temperature shot up by a very large amount. Had I been there in spirit, I would have lost consciousness and burned immediately. As it was, I was highly uncomfortable and scared.

Matamoros turned to where I was facing. There was no light in those bright chartreuse eyes, no light at all. They were pure evil.

"I know you're here, Malcolm Bannock!" the dragon shouted.

"I thought he couldn't see us!" I whispered angrily towards Arceus. "I was supposed to be hidden from him!"

"I think the magic is fading. Hurry!"

With that, Arceus snapped his fingers, and everything went black once more.

* * *

The next thing I knew, I was standing back in the Hall of Origin, back in the throne room. I fell to my knees soon afterwards, however.

"Oh boy" I said. "That was quite something".

Arceus nodded. "It can be quite jarring to see Matamoros in his weakened state".

"Hold on" I replied. "You say that was his _weakened_ state?"

The deity nodded again. "He'll get a lot stronger than that if he is allowed to. Matamoros, the Conqueror of all worlds...at least, that's how he fancies himself. And that is the plan he will carry out, unless he is stopped. He must be stopped".

"No kidding".

One of Arceus's eyes twinkled rather dangerously. "And that is the offer I am making you here in the Hall of Origin. Will you accept it?"

 _I think he wants me to help him defeat Matamoros. Should I take his offer? What's the best thing that can happen if I do? What's the worst thing that can happen if I don't?_

My mind was racing. I didn't know if I'd ever come to a decision without hearing more.

"You have two options here, Malcolm Bannock, and I ask you to choose wisely, as your future depends on it".

"My _future_ depends on it?" I asked him. "How can it, when I'm dead?"

"I mean your _eternal_ future. What will happen to you, for all eternity, is going to be determined by what you choose now".

 _Oh, man. That sure paints a picture of the stakes, doesn't it?_

"Well, what are my options?" I asked him. I was trying to weigh everything, take it all into account.

"The first option is to decline my offer. In that case, you will receive eternal oblivion. I'll snap my fingers right here, and you will go to sleep and never wake up. You'll never even realize it happened".

 _Sounds pretty good, actually,_ I thought, _compared to what the other option probably is._

I didn't want to ask, but I did anyway. "And the other option is…".

"To help me in my goal to destroy Matamoros. I'll transport you to the northern, snowy forests of Sinnoh. There, I will warn you, you will be mortal just like any other man. If you're killed, you will not regain consciousness. You will face eternal oblivion; there's no coming back from that".

That thought should have scared me, but it didn't. I had just expected eternal oblivion for so long that the threat of it didn't have much of an effect on me. I'd just always assumed that I'd be permanently unconscious, so hearing that it might happen after all didn't surprise me.

"The choice is yours" Arceus told me. "Just know that if you succeed in the quest, you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams. If that does not motivate you, I do not know what will".

"Can I think about it for a while?" I asked the deity.

Arceus nodded. "Of course you may, Malcolm Bannock. Indeed, the room we are in right now is a time hollow".

"What do you mean by that?"

"This place - time does not pass here the way it does outside. You'll never get hungry, thirsty, need to use the restroom, etc. You could spend a thousand years in this room and only five seconds would pass in the outside world before you came out again".

 _Are we talking about time travel here?,_ I wondered.

"Yes" Arceus replied. "You may take as much time as you need to make your decision. Like I said, choose wisely, because, once you've chosen, there is no turning back".

I weighed my options.

If I didn't go, I'd just go to sleep forever. In that sense, I'd lose nothing. I had nothing to lose from not attempting this.

But, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became about something: I had nothing to _gain_ from it either. That was the no-risk, no-reward option.

If I chose to take part in Arceus's quest and attempt to defeat Matamoros, there was no telling what might happen. I didn't know what would be required to defeat the Conqueror, and, if I did do the quest, I wanted to delay the moment when I'd find out for as long as possible.

 _But is it worth it?_

After all, I might go through a lot of pain only to end up with the same fate as I would have if I chose immediate oblivion. Indeed, it could be oblivion, or pain and _then_ oblivion.

But then I thought of the reward Arceus was speaking of. He had said that he would reward me "beyond my wildest dreams" if I succeeded.

 _But would I succeed?_

 _Not if I don't try._

It was possible that the deity was simply trying to manipulate me. He might have even been lying.

But I didn't care. If there was anything I could do to save the Pokemon world, I was going to do it. I wasn't going quietly into that good night.

I made my decision.

"I'm going" I said firmly, planting my feet on the ground. "I'm going to help you".

"Very well, then" Arceus replied. "I appreciate that. If you can succeed in your endeavor, you will gain access to the highest level of heaven. If you cannot...well, you won't".

I felt a large weight on my chest. Nothing was there, but it felt like a baby elephant were sitting on me.

I'd made my decision. There was no going back, and it was all the marbles, right here.

"There are two more things I would like for you to know before you depart" Arceus told me. "The first is that your beloved is safe...for now".

"Angelina?"

"Yes, that's the one. Angelina Hawley will be waiting for you when you arrive in the woods of northern Sinnoh. She will be with you in your quest".

"Okay" I replied. "And the other thing?"

Arceus winked. "You'll find out when you get there".


	4. The Aura Is With Me

**My vacation has ended, and I'm finally back in the United States. I like traveling, but I hate GETTING there. I'm a bigger guy, so I'm not exactly comfortable on a plane for long periods of time.**

 **That said, my trip was pretty cool. I saw a lot of tropical birds, and that was great. But it was hot as hell; I have never sweated so much. It's nice to be back in the northern USA.**

 **Current music: Youngblood - 5 Seconds of Summer**

* * *

The next thing I knew, I was very, _very_ cold.

This wasn't too surprising; after all, Arceus had told me that I'd be in the northern woods of Sinnoh. Even in June, the weather there could be quite frigid, and I certainly didn't envy anyone who would end up there like I had, just plunked right into the middle of this place and left to fend for myself.

Somehow, however, I felt _different._

I knew that there was probably something earth-shatteringly different about me, something that, if I had had access to a mirror, I'd have been able to pick up on.

And yet, there was the problem: I didn't have a mirror, or anything else for that matter. It was just me, looking at my...paw?

 _Hello, Malcolm Bannock,_ said a voice inside my head. I turned around, but nobody was there.

"Where am I?" I asked. "And who are you?"

There was a chuckle. _It's Arceus again. You left my side not five minutes ago, so I'd think that you'd know. I forgot to tell you one thing._

"What is that?" I asked him.

"I'll tell you once you're in front of a mirror. There are some stones around here, as well as a pool, that can function as such".

I shrugged. "I suppose".

Examining my surroundings, I found that I was in what appeared to be a crystal cave of sorts. Many spikes jutted out of the wall, and they were all in shades of cyan ranging from turquoise to teal. If I'd tried to sit on them, the result would be very painful indeed.

Everything was covered in a fine layer of ice, explaining why it seemed rather slippery. It wasn't the coldest place I'd ever been in, but it was cold enough to see my own breath, something I'm really not used to in the middle of June.

 _The temperature here is 23 degrees Fahrenheit,_ Arceus told me. _Or, if you looked at it another way, it's -5 degrees Celsius. Either way, it's pretty chily here. Fortunately you have your nice new coat of fur._

It was cold in the cave, very cold even, but I didn't feel as cold as I would have expected based on the temperature figures Arceus had given me. The wind was howling and blowing into the cave, and snow was even being blown onto the ground.

 _I'm cold, but not as cold as I should be._

 _Wait a minute...he mentioned that I have fur now? That would explain that...but what did he turn me into?_

There was little doubt in my mind that I was no longer human. Indeed, I'd seen that my hands had been replaced with thick black paws. I didn't look down at the rest of my body, however, because I feared that I might lose my balance if I did so, for it really was quite slippery on the crystal floor.

The crystal, while very beautiful, was rather opaque. I couldn't see through it, nor could I see my reflection in it.

I saw that there was a path leading to a pool of water, so I took it.

 _Yes, Malcolm Bannock. That is the way you want to go._

I supposed that I would trust Arceus on this. I really had no reason not to, after all. He probably knew best how to defeat Matamoros, and, if going to this pool was the first step in that process, then so be it.

 _I have to follow all of Arceus's instructions,_ I told myself. _Now, and I think forever._

 _Wait...forever ever? Forever ever?_

I suppose that "forever" doesn't seem so long until you're staring it right in the face and looking at spending eternity on a quest to defeat an enormous dragon.

 _But the quest won't take all of eternity,_ I told myself. _I'm sure that I can knock it out pretty quickly._

All of these were thoughts I had as I made my way towards the pool of water. Almost immediately, I gasped once I reached the edge of it.

This cavern wasn't enormous. It was roughly the size of a tropical cabana, if said cabana was made out of crystal instead. In the pool was some of the clearest water I'd ever seen.

 _Yes, it is ideal for seeing your reflection there,_ Arceus told me in my head. _Now, go there and tell me what you see when you look into it._

I gulped. I was confident that I was no longer human, but I didn't know exactly _what_ the deity had turned me into.

 _I'm about to find out._

I made my way towards the pool and looked inside...and a Lucario looked back at me.

I wasn't from a world where Pokemon occurred naturally. I'd only ever seen images of them, and yet here I was, a _Lucario,_ staring at myself in the pool of water.

The fur on my face was blue, while that on my chest was a cross between tan and gold. If I had to choose, however, I would have said it was a brilliant soft yellow color. My eyes...they were red. Not blue, but a bright red.

 _Yes, you are now a Lucario,_ Arceus told me. _How does it feel?_

I didn't know how to answer that question. I was certainly surprised that I had turned into a Lucario when he'd teleported me into this crystal cave, but I supposed that I didn't feel too much different.

And yet...I felt stronger somehow, both physically and mentally, as though I were finally in tune with nature. This was Malcolm II, the superior form of Malcolm Bannock.

 _You know what? I like this new form...but it's going to have its drawbacks, for sure._

Almost immediately, I realized that, while I was in a snowy area now, where my thick fur coat could be useful, it wouldn't be that way forever. Eventually, I'd wish that I had less fur, and then what could I do about it? Absolutely nothing!

 _This is part of your mission,_ Arceus told me. _You will need to be a Lucario in order to do this properly. I hope you know how to use aura._

Before I'd died and met Arceus, I'd had no idea that aura even _existed,_ so I felt that it was a bit too much for the deity to expect me to be able to use it effectively.

 _Just focus, and you'll be able to create an Aura Sphere.  
Not right here, though, because you might end up collapsing the cave, and you'll need to get out of there first._

"Me turning into a Lucario wasn't part of the deal, you know" I said to Arceus. I was aware that this was a dangerous move, saying that in front of what was supposed to be the most powerful being in all of existence, but I didn't really care. Perhaps I did care, but just didn't think about it. That happens to me sometimes.

 _I have no comment._

Breathing heavily in frustration, I looked around the cavern. In doing so, however, I accidentally slipped into the pool of water.

As soon as I touched the water, I gasped. I'd had expectations that it would be cold...but surely not _this_ cold? I knew that ice was made of water, of course, but this literally felt like liquid ice.

Teeth chattering like fingers against computer keys, I hauled myself out of the water. I was still shivering like crazy, and there were no towels in sight, nor was there any other visible means of warming myself up.

 _Eventually, with enough practice, you'll be able to dry your fur using aura. Not right yet, though._

 _I can't believe this,_ I thought. _If Arceus wants me to help him defeat Matamoros, he's certainly not making it as easy as he could be. Why not give me the ability to dry my fur using aura right away?_

 _Maybe he's trying to test me. But, if that's the case, why test me if he knows what I'd do if I was tested? He's omniscient, after all._

 _Whatever. The Pokemon world is real, so the laws of logic don't need to apply here._

I decided to grit my teeth and try to find my way out of the cave.

This wasn't difficult. There were really only two pathways away from the segment of cave I'd woken up in, and one of them led to the icy pool of water. The other presumably led out into the daylight.

I walked towards it, slipping and sliding a little on the ice, but I eventually reached the opening. It was so small that I had to crawl through it; I couldn't walk.

As soon as I was there, though, I couldn't believe what I saw.

 _Snowpoint City,_ Arceus told me. _It's the least populous of all the cities in Sinnoh, with a population of 36,496 people. It's also the northernmost, so far north that it snows all year round._

"I could have guessed that based on the name, thanks" I replied grimly. Shrugging, I crawled out of the cave and saw the view below.

Snowpoint City was spread out below, a patchwork of various neighborhoods. In one of the smaller neighborhoods, all of the buildings were made out of ice.

 _I wouldn't want to live in that neighborhood,_ I thought. _Too cold. WAY too cold._

Granted, there wasn't a single place in Snowpoint City that was warm from the standpoint of temperature. That said, there were definitely parts of the city that looked inviting.

In one neighborhood, for instance, all of the buildings were made out of wood. Smoke could be seen coming out of the chimneys, and it really added to the assumption that most of the city's people were inside, chatting with friends or family.

Another neighborhood appeared far less inviting. Here, all the buildings were made of steel, and they were skyscrapers, some of them reaching forty or fifty stories above the street.

 _How am I able to see all of this?_ I wondered. I must have been a mile or more from the city's edge, more than a thousand feet above it in elevation, but I could make out much finer details than I normally would have been.

 _Think about what you were, and what you have become,_ Arceus's voice said inside my head.

 _Of course,_ I realized. _I'm a Lucario now, so my senses are a lot sharper. I'll probably need them, somehow._

Yeah...that made sense. Perhaps I'd require sharper senses in order to deal with this threat Arceus was speaking of.

"What do I do now, Arceus?" I asked the deity.

I wasn't expecting an answer. They say that God works in mysterious ways, which, for a while, I'd thought was a euphemism for "Stop asking hard questions". However, I was starting to see that this was indeed the case. There was no way to tell what Arceus had in store for me.

 _You need to head into the forest,_ he told me. _You'll find what you seek there. After that, you're on your own._

 _I'm on my own?,_ I thought, angrily directed at Arceus. _But you want me to succeed in this quest. You want me to defeat Matamoros, so why aren't you going to tell me exactly what I need to do?_

I didn't say any of that out loud so as not to anger the deity. I'd never feared God before in my human life, but, now that I was dead, things were different.

 _I'm dead,_ I kept thinking. I had to keep pinching myself in order to believe that the afterlife was real, and that I was there. It was quite a crazy thought to have.

 _Go into the woods,_ Arceus told me, _and everything will be clear to you. Just trust me on that. Head into the woods._

I didn't see any reason to disobey a deity, so that's what I did. I saw a large clump of evergreen trees near me, so I searched them first.

 _You'll find what you seek there._

Angelina. She had to be in this forest somewhere, as that was what I sought more than anything else. I'd just been thrust into this crazy afterlife world, with absolutely nothing from my first life present in it. She was the one thing I could hold on to from my Earthly existence.

I searched for an hour, and, despite the cold, I was starting to sweat quite a bit. Sweating in cold weather is no fun, because it makes you feel colder, and that's not something that's ideal, even when you have the blue fur coat of a Lucario.

Eventually, I reached a small clump of trees, behind which clouds of steam were rising. There was an aura of warmth radiating from there, and, what was more, an aura of _life._

 _Angelina has to be in there,_ I realized. _This has to be the place he wanted me to go. And she's probably relaxing in the hot spring right now...I wonder if Arceus gave her the same speech that he gave me?_

 _Anything's possible._

Panting from the exertion of trudging through the deep snow above the city, I made my way through the trees. I gasped in awe at what was behind them.

It was a hot spring, a small pool of hot water that had probably come from a volcano of some sorts. And, bathing in it...there was a female Lucario.

Now, most Lucario look pretty similar to one another, but, if you have the ability to see aura like I did, you can tell them apart. Even though every Lucario, every living thing even, possesses aura, no two creatures' auras are exactly the same.

Therefore, I could tell that it was Angelina there.

* * *

 **ANGELINA'S POV**

I'd been very scared indeed when we'd passed the burning car on the bridge. I was also angry at Malcolm for driving so fast, because, in my opinion (and probably anyone else's), he should have known better than to throw caution to the wind.

I'd been knocked out after that, and thus didn't remember anything until I was falling from the sky.

Now, I'm quite scared of heights. I ended up screaming my head off as I was descending, free-falling like a stone dropped from an airplane. I must have been as high as a plane, too, because I could see a huge landscape below me.

The landscape didn't look too unlike anything I'd ever seen before. It could have been Europe or the American West, since there were high mountains, capped with snow, visible from the air.

Something told me, however, that it was neither of those. Rather, it was a place that I'd never been before, somewhere that wasn't on Earth.

 _This must be another planet,_ I thought. _Or maybe even an alternate dimension._

I hadn't believed in an alternate dimension, neither had I believed in any sort of afterlife, before this had happened. However, events that had just happened, events that came rushing right back to me, forced me to think differently.

 _This is it,_ I thought. _I'm dead...at least, I should be. And what's more, I'm somehow still alive._

It wouldn't be that way for long if I stayed in free fall, though. I spread out my limbs like a skydiver, but that seemed to do nothing to slow my descent. I was still plummeting towards one of the largest mountains in the range below me.

Eventually, I did land on top of the roof of what looked like a cathedral. Rather than dying instantly from the impact, I slowly crashed through the glass roof and descended rather gracefully towards the ground.

After that, based on Malcolm's account of the story, you can probably infer what happened to me next. Arceus grilled me on the various things I'd done wrong in my life, and then offered me a chance to make it right.

The next thing I knew, I was in the middle of a forest clearing, the ground covered in a thick layer of snow. I looked at myself and saw that I was some sort of mythical creature, one I'd never seen before.

Arceus told me that I was something called a "Lucario"...what was that? My senses seemed a lot sharper than they normally did, so I believed that I was something different from my usual human form, but still...I just didn't know what to think.

I was shivering a great deal, since I'm pretty sensitive to the cold. On one occasion, I'd forgotten my jacket on the way to school in the middle of a New England winter, and I'd asked a fellow student named Natalie for hers.

She'd declined, which, honestly, was understandable. I was much younger then, and I'd learned my lesson since that day.

 _Except,_ I thought, _was I really younger then? I suppose I am forever young, to put it one way._

It was quite something to wrap one's head around, that was for sure.

Right now, though, there was no time that I would rather have Natalie's jacket. I envisioned her standing next to me and asking her, "Natalie, is there any way I can have your jacket?", just like I had in second grade.

 _Don't focus on memories from when you were seven,_ I told myself. _They won't help you stay warm now, that's for sure._

After searching for some time, I found a clump of evergreen trees, behind which a thick column of steam rose. I could only assume that it was a hot spring or something like that; there could be no comparable level of steam from any other cause in this forest.

Fortunately, since I was now a Lucario, I didn't have to worry about modesty in any way, shape, or form, since my fur covered all of my private parts. I simply got into the hot spring and started soaking.

I don't know how long I was there before Malcolm Bannock appeared.


	5. Stand Up and Run

**Thank you all for 10 favorites and 18 follows! Those numbers really mean a lot to me, because it means that I'm providing people with enjoyment.**

 **I'm back at school, and updates may slow down a little, since I need to catch up. I hope that you will understand. The chapter title comes from a song I like.**

 **Current music: Centuries - Fall Out Boy**

* * *

 **MALCOLM'S POV**

I couldn't believe my luck. Or rather, I wouldn't have been able to believe it unless I'd just been with Arceus, who had told me that I'd find what I was seeking.

I didn't really like how the deity had referred to Angelina as an object that I was looking for. I supposed that, to him, everything was impersonal, but not to me. Angelina was someone I liked, both as a friend and maybe, just maybe, as something a little more than just that.

Somehow, I could tell that it was Angelina bathing in the hot spring at that very moment. It was something about the particulars of her aura that made it clear to me that she was the one I'd been looking for.

"You're Malcolm, right?" she said, looking directly at me.

I nodded. "The one and only Malcolm Bannock. Well, as far as I know, there might be others, but I'm the only one who knows Angelina Hawley. That is you, correct?"

"Yep" the female Lucario replied, looking down at the hot water she was currently relaxing in. "You should come in here, it's really nice".

I looked around at the grove of trees and saw that it was pretty thick. It wasn't impenetrable, but it was very unlikely that someone standing a good distance away would be able to see us. And that was good, because I didn't want someone like that to think that me and Angelina were…"together".

"Okay" I replied, dipping my right foot into the pool. To my surprise, it wasn't scalding. Rather, it was much like the temperature of a Jacuzzi, hot but comfortable. I decided to go all the way in.

The bottom of the spring was rocky and slippery, and I slid slightly as I touched it with my feet.

"Careful" Angelina said. "It's deeper than it looks in the center".

I nodded. For a brief time, I'd actually slipped underneath the water, and it was probably about seven feet deep there. I'd been able to use my own body as a measuring stick (I'm 6 feet, 2 inches tall).

After I'd made my way to the side of the pool, I sat back and tried to relax as much as possible. I could almost convince myself that we were in a tropical locale, and that we were waiting for someone to give us coconuts with straws sticking out.

 _Man, I want to drink out of a coconut so bad,_ I thought. _That'd be awesome right about now._

Of course, a quick glance around me provided a reality check. The pine trees surrounding the pool were covered in a thin layer of snow, much like frosting on a cake. I knew that getting out of the hot spring was going to be brutal; I was going to shiver like crazy.

"So...what happened to you?" Angelina asked me. "Are you dead as well?"

"We should probably talk more quietly than that" I replied. "We don't need anybody else hearing us talking so casually about being dead, or else you know what the results will be".

"Nothing good" she said. "But you didn't answer my question. Are you dead?"

"Yeah, I'm dead" I replied, trying to sound as serious as possible. "I'm pretty sure that that's the only way we could have come to this place".

"If this is the afterlife", Angelina replied, "I'd honestly rather not have any. You know that I don't like cold places too much. Ironic, I know, since we lived in New England".

I smiled. Even in moments like this, when both of us had been condemned to this crazy afterlife where there was no guarantee we'd get out of this mission intact, Angelina could still have a sense of humor. That was another thing I liked about her.

A light snow was falling now, and the trees were being blanketed in a thicker layer of the white stuff. Not only that, but the rocks surrounding the hot spring were now covered in snow as well. They would be very slippery when we tried to get out.

"Okay", Angelina said eventually, "what did Arceus tell you? Just please tell me".

"He said that he needs my help on a mission of his. There's this evil dragon named Matamoros who wants to conquer the world".

"That's interesting", Angelina replied, "because he told me no such thing".

"He didn't tell you about Matamoros? Why not?"

"Well, he did tell me about having to do something for him to make things right, so that I can get the good afterlife. But he didn't tell me about Matamoros".

I felt my jaw drop slightly. "Really?"

She nodded. "I guess he decided that I couldn't handle the truth. He might strike us down right now, just because he might not have intended for me to know about it".

We waited for a few seconds, but nothing happened. When it became obvious that Arceus wasn't going to do that, I decided to speak up next.

"Matamoros is _huge,_ Angelina. His tail must be over a mile long; he looks more like a landmass than anything. Plus, I felt fear when I had a vision of him that Arceus gave me. Absolute fear, nothing else".

"You're telling me about this dragon that Arceus needs our help to defeat?" Angelina asked me.

"Yeah. He does".

"But why should he need _our_ help?" she replied. "He's a deity. Isn't he supposed to be all-powerful?"

I'd given that some thought before, but hearing Angelina broach the subject brought everything into sharper relief than it had been before.

"I suppose he is" I replied. "I really don't know why he'd need our help, unless Matamoros is more powerful than even I realized".

Even though I was immersed up to my shoulders in the hot spring, I couldn't help but shiver. If Arceus himself couldn't simply snap his fingers and make Matamoros disappear, what did that say about the Conqueror?

 _Absolutely nothing good,_ I thought. _He's just so strong; I have no doubt that Arceus has tried his best, and the fact that he hasn't been able to put this threat to bed is more than a little unsettling._

"Well, you just can't win" Angelina replied eventually. "We should probably get out now - it's only going to be harder to adjust to the cold air the longer we wait".

I nodded. Spending too long in a hot tub makes me feel somewhat woozy, and I didn't need to be passing out right here. Not in front of Angelina.

"Should we look for a place to sleep?" I asked her as we climbed out of the hot spring. "I'm thinking somewhere outside the city".

She shrugged. "I think we'll need to find one eventually, because night's coming eventually...or is it?"

I knew that, the further north you got on Earth, the shorter the days were in winter and the longer they were in summer. This might not have been Earth, but I had a feeling that the same law applied here. It was very likely that the sun would stay up for 24 hours up here in Snowpoint City, since it was the middle of June.

 _The day I died was June 13,_ I thought. _If it's still the same day, then of course the sun's going to be up for almost the whole day._

It was hard for me to believe that I had died earlier that day and woken up in this world. More specifically, that it had only been a couple of hours. So much had changed since then; so much had happened that I felt like I'd lived a whole nother lifetime.

"I don't know" I said eventually, and that was the most honest answer I could give.

Eventually, we started walking, and I was shivering a great deal. Part of that, of course, was because I'd just gotten out of a hot spring and back into the cold air. I might even go so far as to say that _most_ of it was due to the physical cold.

However, I was also terrified of anything that could scare a deity. What could Arceus ever have to fear? He was all-powerful, after all.

We kept walking for several miles. Even though I was sweating and panting from the exertion of trudging through deep snow that was only getting deeper, moving was helping to warm me up, and I was very grateful for that.

At a certain point, we came across a small hill, probably fifteen feet tall or so. From here, we still had a pretty good view of Snowpoint City, but it wasn't my main focus. I was starting to feel quite cold again now that we were no longer in the middle of a grove of evergreens (which, by the way, there were a lot of).

It was then that I noticed something unexpected.

"There seems to be an opening there" I said. "A cave, maybe?"

Angelina nodded, but she didn't say anything. She was too busy looking at the opening to really focus on answering my question.

"Yeah, it's a cave for sure" I said. "We should probably take shelter there, from the snow".

I had my reservations about the cave as a shelter. For one, it might not confer too much warmth, not if it was like the crystal cave that I'd woken up in as a Lucario not three hours ago. Also, I'd heard that caves did sometimes collapse under the weight of too much snow.

 _I really don't want to be in that cave if it collapses,_ I thought, shivering some more.

"I'm not opposed to that idea" Angelina replied. "But we'll need to find food as well".

My stomach was already growling, desiring food. I'd wondered if, since I was now deceased, I would still need food. Clearly, the answer was yes; I was going to have to eat just like a living person.

In a way, however, I wasn't happy that Angelina had agreed to be in the cave. I wished that she would have protested the idea, and I'd have been happy to agree with her.

Why, you might ask? Well, I'm kind of a claustrophobic individual. Both as a human and as a Lucario, I was a bigger guy than average, and that didn't help matters. As stated above, I was somewhat worried about a cave-in.

 _We might suffocate if the snow slides off and buries us,_ I thought. _Imagine that, we just got a second chance at life, and then it's over just like that._

I decided that, between those two methods of (re)death, I'd choose getting crushed over suffocation. At least the former would be quicker.

"Yeah. But let's see the cave first" I said, knowing that it was against my own better judgment to do so; I _really_ didn't want to do this, but it was necessary.

We moved aside a small amount of snow so that there was just barely enough room for us to fit in the opening. Then, we crawled through.

There was a tunnel that led deeper into the cave. I didn't know how long it was, and, in a way, I didn't _want_ to know. I just wanted to get to the end of it.

Since the tunnel was only roughly two feet high, Angelina and I had to crawl on our paws and knees to get through it. This only increased my feeling of claustrophobia, but, fortunately, we soon reached an area that was tall enough that we could stand if we were doubled over.

I looked around. As a Lucario, my vision was far more acute than it had been as a human. Therefore, I was able to tell the size of the cave, roughly speaking, by looking at the walls and seeing how far apart they were.

In addition, I could see that there were a good number of crates stacked in one part of the cave.

"What are those crates?" I asked Angelina. I knew that she probably didn't have any more of an idea than me, but I wanted to broach the subject so that she'd agree to search them.

"No idea" she replied.

"I'm going to search them" I said in as determined a voice as I could muster. "If they have fruit or something in them, that's going to be very useful for us".

"Survival instincts, huh?"

"Angelina, you do realize that we're in the middle of the forest; we kind of _have_ to use survival instincts here. In order to, you know, _survive_ ".

"Malcolm, be careful searching the crates" she told me. "There could be dynamite or some other explosive in there".

First of all, I highly doubted that. Second of all, it was a risk I was willing to take. We needed food, and they sure looked like fruit crates of some sort.

"I will be" I lied. In reality, I was going to throw caution to the wind as I tore them open.

I slammed one of the crates against the ground. It broke, releasing a pile of apples.

"Are those... _apples?"_ Angelina said aloud. It was clear to see that she hadn't expected to find food in here.

I nodded. "We might have just struck the jackpot".

After we each had an apple to eat, I decided to break open another few crates. One had peaches. Another had slices of whole wheat bread. A fourth had a container of beer.

"We're not going to drink the beer" Angelina said firmly.

I didn't argue with her. In life, I'd never been much of a drinker; I'd maybe had a few sips a couple of times, but I'd hated the taste. It just wasn't something that I'd enjoyed. In addition, I was determined that both of us would have good judgment over the next few days, or however long we stayed in this cave, and I knew that alcohol could impair that.

All of the fruit tasted very fresh somehow, and that surprised me. How had they managed to keep it that way in this dark, dank cave?

"Well, I guess we've solved our food problem" Angelina said, chuckling.

I smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. "For now".

* * *

Over the next three days, Angelina and I stayed in the cave. At least, I thought it was three days. I couldn't really tell; we never left the cave, not even to go for a quick walk, because a blizzard was hammering the area outside of it.

Every few minds, a howling wind would blow a bit of snow into the cave entrance, and we'd both shiver. The cave, not exactly the warmest place even in the best of times, would get very cold very fast.

Staying inside the cave made me very restless, much like when you're on a long airplane ride. All I wanted to do was stand up and run, but I couldn't do that, for obvious reasons.

Even though she never said this to me, I could tell that Angelina was getting impatient with our current lot in afterlife now. She was increasingly fidgety, and I couldn't help but think she wanted out of here.

For as much as I hated the cave, we also stayed in it for warmth. It might have been chilly even at the best of times, but we were both very much aware that it was much colder outside of said cave.

On the fourth day, Angelina put her foot down. "We're going to have to leave this place eventually" she said firmly.

"Why?" I asked. I had a feeling I already knew why, though.

"The food's almost out, and there's every prospect that we might get snowed in. You know what happens if we're snowed in, right?"

"Yeah. We both suffocate, because there won't be enough air getting through". A chill ran down my spine just saying that out loud.

Angelina nodded. "We've been eating too much, and now we only have about a day left of food, even if we ration it well".

I knew where she was coming from. It might have been something about being dead, or now being a Lucario (who burned a lot more calories than a human), but I was hungrier than I had been as a human. This was saying a lot, since I was already almost always hungry back in life.

As a result, the food had dwindled down rather quickly.

"Are you suggesting we stand up and run?" I asked her. "Just desert this cave and never look back?"

"I mean", she replied, "it would be very difficult to find it again. A lot of the landscape looks the same, except for the occasional clumps of trees. And, like I said, the entrance will be snowed in with another blizzard".

I looked at the way we'd come in. Already it was halfway filled with snow. There was no question that the percentage of the cave that had snow in it would increase.

 _The sooner we leave, the better._

And yet, looking at the entrance, I didn't particularly want to leave. I was rather anxious about the small area that would be available to crawl in, which only activated my claustrophobia further.

"Well, we'd better get out now" I said, and Angelina nodded. I almost wished she hadn't nodded, but, as stated above, I knew it was better to get it over with.

We both got onto our hands and knees and began crawling towards the entrance to the cave. This wasn't an easy task, since part of it was blocked due to the snow. This meant that we had to push snow out of the way as we were crawling.

Before long, my forehead was caked in sweat, even in spite of the frigid weather. However, it wasn't long after that that I finally emerged into the snowy air.

It was bright outside, but that meant nothing this far north in the summer. It could be noon or midnight.

A blizzard was currently raging as well, and let me tell you something. I'm from New England, meaning that I'm not a stranger to blizzards. But that was _nothing_ like this. I had never known daylight could be so violent.

"Let's find some food" I said eventually, as Angelina made her way out of the cave (she'd been a few feet behind my legs, since we were in a single-file line).

"Yeah, let's. Do you have any idea where we can go?"

I didn't want to admit that I didn't. Even though we were in northern Sinnoh, I knew that two Lucario appearing out of nowhere in the middle of Snowpoint City would be likely to attract attention. Most Lucario in Sinnoh lived in the Coronet Range that made its way down the middle of the region.

So downtown was out. It would hardly be a better idea to stay here. If we did, we'd die anyway eventually, from starvation and hypothermia.

 _Die for the second time,_ I reminded myself.

I didn't know what to do. Even if we did find another cave, it was unlikely that it would contain food in any quantity. Neither of us knew how to hunt, nor did we have any other survival skills.

 _I thought Lucario had built-in survival skills or something,_ I thought. _Well, that is evidently not the case._

Eventually, we decided that we'd head into the city. It wasn't a perfect option, but it was the best choice we had available. I silently cursed Arceus for putting us in this position to begin with.

We kept walking until we reached a group of spruce trees that were a few hundred yards from the outskirts of the limits of Snowpoint City. It appeared almost impenetrable, and I knew that, if we tried to get through it, we'd get whacked a great deal.

However, just as it was with heading into the city, there appeared to be no better option. At the very least, we wouldn't be starving if we were in the city, even if we had to eat out of trash cans. Any unwanted attention we might get could be something we dealt with later.

Almost immediately after walking into the grove, I heard the sound of something made of silver flying through the air and, seconds later, felt a searing pain in my stomach.

"MALCOLM!" I heard Angelina yell, but everything was turning fuzzy. With every passing fraction of a second, it was getting harder and harder to process things.

I felt certain that I saw Arceus's shape in front of me, but I didn't know if I was hallucinating from blood loss or if he was really there.

The deity was frowning. _Your time has not come yet_ , he said.

I had no more time to process what that meant before I lost consciousness.


	6. The Businessman

**Hello, and welcome to Chapter 6 of Fallen From Grace!**

 **Not much is going on; I'm catching up to schoolwork after the time I spent abroad. It's been a fairly quick process, but, thanks to this research paper I have to do, my writing time might be a little limited. But who knows?**

 **Current music: Some Nights - Fun**

* * *

 **ANGELINA'S POV**

It had all happened so fast. That might sound cliche, but it's true.

I saw a knife flying through the air, turning over and over as it spiraled towards Malcolm. I didn't say anything; I was too much in shock to do so.

Later, when I relived that moment over and over again in my head, I kept thinking of what I could have done differently. Surely I could have told him to get out of the way, but there was no guarantee that Malcolm would have been able to do that either. He looked like he was in just as much shock as me.

The knife struck Malcolm in the stomach, and he keeled over backwards. I gasped in shock at what had just happened.

"MALCOLM!" I yelled.

But his eyes were all over the place. First, they were looking at me. Then, they were looking at some point in the distance, one that I couldn't quite make out. _Perhaps he's hallucinating?_

And then they fluttered closed.

 _No!,_ I thought. _Fuck, this isn't good._

Anyone else might have had a more dignified response to their friend possibly being killed by a flying knife, but I was just in too much shock to even consider that. I couldn't help but wonder if he was still alive.

Just as I was bending over to check if he still had a pulse, a voice bellowed from a good distance away. It was a harsh, gruff voice, and one I hoped to never hear again.

"There's more where that came from! Get the fuck out of our territory!"

I didn't know if I was strong enough to carry Malcolm out of there, so I dragged him away. I didn't relax until we were a good thirty yards away from the edge of that clump of pine trees. Technically, I wasn't relaxing even now, because it was clear to see that my friend was in big trouble.

Suddenly, just as quickly as his eyes had closed, they had opened again. "Malcolm?" I asked him. "Can you hear me?"

He nodded very slightly. "Angelina...I...".

"Hold still" I said. I didn't look forward to doing this, because I knew how much pain it would cause him. It might even cause him to pass out again. But it had to be done.

"Why?" Malcolm asked me weakly.

I didn't tell him that I was going to remove the knife; I simply did it. He gave a great gasp of pain, and then appeared to pass out again.

"NO! MALCOLM! MALCOLM!"

I wasn't sure whether I cared about him in more than just platonic ways. All I did know was that if I ever wanted to find out, I needed for him to stay alive.

 _Aren't we both already dead?,_ a voice inside my head chided me.

 _You get the point._

Now that I'd removed the knife, he was bleeding freely. A large, gaping wound had been made in his stomach, and it wasn't clear if he'd be able to survive it. I felt that his pulse was getting erratic due to the sheer amount of blood he was losing, and knew that, if he didn't get to a hospital really quickly, he wouldn't make it.

But how was I supposed to get an ambulance? I didn't have a phone, and, in any case, I wasn't sure if the number for emergency services here was 911 or something else. That was certainly knowledge I could have used right about now.

Finally, I saw one on the street right next to me. I hadn't realized this at first, but there was a road leading away from Snowpoint CIty, presumably towards the mountains I could see to the south. What had Arceus referred to them as? The Coronet Range?

 _Doesn't matter right now._

I tried to flag down the ambulance, but the driver didn't appear to notice me. I was getting increasingly frustrated; time was running out.

Fortunately, however, the driver of the ambulance turned his vehicle around so that it was driving on the right side of the road. I supposed that it was hard to ignore a Lucario bleeding profusely on the side of the road.

The driver stopped. "Miss?" he asked.

"Yeah. This is my friend".

He looked at me with suspicion. "What's his name?"

I didn't know if I wanted to tell him Malcolm's real name. I also didn't know whether he'd help me if I didn't show him an ID with his name...but how cruel was that? Wouldn't it be just plain wrong for an EMT to refuse service to someone who couldn't produce an ID?

Finally, I decided that I'd just tell the truth. "Malcolm Bannock" I told him. "And I'm Angelina Hawley".

The driver nodded, pressing a button at the same time. The door to the ambulance opened, and two emergency medical technicians came out with a stretcher between them. Trying not to cry, I helped them lift the unconscious Lucario onto the stretcher.

I climbed into the back of the ambulance, and we sped off.

I watched as Malcolm was attached to several machines, and, as I did so, I couldn't help but wonder why I cared so much. After all, we were just friends.

 _Yeah, but we're pretty close friends,_ I thought. _Surely that should make sense, right? I'm not in love with anyone. Not Malcolm Bannock, not anyone else._

 _Let's just hope he lives to tell the tale..._

* * *

 **MALCOLM'S POV**

As everything was happening that Angelina described, I felt as though I were floating out of my own body. I couldn't see what they were doing to me, trying to keep me alive, but I could hear their desperate attempts to stabilize me.

And that terrified me. Even though Arceus had said it wasn't my time yet, I didn't feel relaxed. The sense of floating didn't feel pleasant; rather, it was as though I were going down a large drop on a roller coaster.

I thought I heard a steady pitch, which couldn't mean anything good. Perhaps I'd just heard myself flatline.

 _I guess this might be the end for me, after all._

Arceus had told me, back in the Hall of Origin, that if I died now, for the second time, I would be dead forever. There would be no coming back, which was why I desperately hoped that I would survive this.

 _Hey,_ I thought, _you'll have one hell of a scar to show Angelina...but then, she's probably already seen it, hasn't she?_

Those were the last thoughts I had before blacking out again.

The next thing I remember, I was lying on my back, my body against starched sheets. It felt like a bed, something I hadn't known for several days.

 _Angelina's probably made me a bed out of snow,_ I thought at first. Perhaps I was delirious from blood loss, and thought that snow was somehow warm. That would be absolutely ridiculous, so I quickly came to the conclusion that I wasn't in the snow anymore.

And then I opened my eyes, and I was able to see where I was.

It appeared to be a hospital room. Then again, I couldn't remember ever having been in a hospital, so I wasn't an expert on what their patient rooms looked like. What I _did_ know was that I had a great view of a city blanketed in snow, right in the middle of a blizzard. Heavy winds battered against the glass, to the point that I wondered if the windows might break.

"Don't worry" a voice nearby said. "They don't break. One of the nurses told me that".

It was a voice I recognized, a decidedly female one, but trying to sit up and see who had spoken those words caused a pain in my stomach so severe that I couldn't help but groan.

"Stay down, then" she continued. "You're too weak to rise".

I wasn't going to argue with that, so I closed my eyes once again and fell asleep at once.

It felt like only seconds later that I was once more looking at my surroundings in the hospital room. However, I knew that it had to have been a number of hours, because it was now dark outside. (It was probably roughly midnight, because, in June, that's the _only_ time it's dark in Snowpoint City, and, when you get even further north than that, it's light 24 hours a day).

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Malcolm" said the voice. Unlike the last time I'd woken up, I felt a lot more coherent.

 _Angelina,_ I thought. _That's Angelina._

"You really had us worried, you know" she told me. "Especially me. You woke up earlier this afternoon, but you weren't coherent at all. I've been holding your hand ever since".

I remembered that I'd been stabbed in the morning. Therefore, it had been more than twelve hours, most likely, that I'd been out, not counting the brief time I'd woken up. "That's a long time" I replied weakly. My mouth felt like the bottom of a fish tank.

"You must be really thirsty" Angelina said. "Here, let me get you some. They've kept you hydrated with a drip, so you don't need to drink _too_ much. Just enough to get your vocal cords back".

"So...what did happen?" I asked, once I'd drunk a cup of water. I knew I'd gotten stabbed with something at least resembling a knife, but I wasn't sure how I'd gotten here, precisely.

"Well, I managed to flag down an ambulance, which arrived just in the nick of time. I removed the knife - I don't know if I should have, you lost so much blood after that I thought you were a goner".

 _That's a comforting thought,_ I thought bitterly. I couldn't believe, even now, lying in a hospital bed attached to a heart monitor and with a couple of IVs in my left arm, that I'd come that close to dying.

And then she said something that chilled me right to the bone.

"Your heart stopped once, when you almost bled to death".

That sentence almost made me pass out again. While it was somewhat cool to have survived another death, in a way, I was terrified by just how close I'd come to not existing anymore. To not succeeding in our quest.

 _Did that knife come from one of Matamoros's minions?,_ I wondered.

"Wow" I said, because, really, that was all I could say.

"Yeah, they had to use a defibrillator to bring you back. Your eyes opened once that time, but I'm assuming you don't remember that?"

I shook my head. "Angelina, do you have any idea who threw that knife?"

It was now her turn to shake her head. "I really don't, and that's the truth. I just heard a gruff voice saying that we'd trespassed on their property or whatever, that we weren't welcome where we were. They were just defending their territory, and I'm sorry that you had to get hurt so badly".

"Don't be sorry" I replied weakly. I was starting to feel drowsy again, probably from the immense amount of painkiller that was no doubt working its way through my system at this very moment. "It's their fucking fault".

Angelina smiled, and that was the last thing I saw before I drifted off again.

I woke up for the third time, this time for good, several hours later. This time, a doctor was standing over me, looking tired but relieved.

"Good morning...Malcolm Bannock. You probably want to know more about your condition, don't you?"

 _If that news is that I'm about to die, then you can probably hold off on it. I'd appreciate that._

"Well, the good news is that we were able to save your life" said the doctor. "We gave you two bags of blood, and that brought your heart rate and blood pressure back to a safe range. As this young woman told you, your heart stopped at one point, but we did bring you back".

"That's a relief" I replied. "Thanks, guys".

"Hey, that's what we're for" the doctor told me. "In any case, you can leave here tomorrow morning as long as no infection develops. Fortunately, Lucario tend to heal very fast, so there is that. Your wound was rather severe, and you need to be careful not to get your stitches wet. No showers or baths until they dissolve, which should take about three days".

 _Where am I going to take a shower or bath, to be fair?,_ I wondered.

"Finally", said the doctor, "we have no records of any Malcolm Bannock living in Snowpoint City, or anywhere in the general vicinity. There are certainly no records of any Lucario with that name".

I was convinced that I was about to flatline again, because my heart dropped at that. Of course, I knew that there wouldn't be records in Snowpoint City of me, and I wished that Arceus would have dealt with that for us. That said, maybe all hope wasn't lost, as, when I looked into Angelina's eyes, they were twinkling slightly.

"Angelina, you already know this, but Malcolm, while you were sleeping a few hours ago, I told her that a very kind businessman has agreed to take the two of you in temporarily, while you two find a place to live in a more long-term arrangement".

 _The house of a businessman,_ I thought. _Probably a mansion. Wouldn't that be awesome?_

"Yes" said the doctor. "His name is Brett Collingsworth, and I expect that the two of you will be on your best behavior while at his house. He is also a Lucario, and he has a son roughly your age".

"You know how old I am, right?" I asked the doctor. I don't know why I blurted that out, even now.

"Angelina told me you just turned nineteen. Is that correct?"

"It is".

"Very well, then. Like I said, you'll be released in roughly twenty-four hours. We need to make sure you are completely stable first, because you're not out of the woods yet; an infection is very much possible, which is why we're dosing you with antibiotics right now".

I nodded. Looking over at Angelina, she looked rather excited, and I asked her why that was.

"I just can't wait to stay at Mr. Collingsworth's mansion" she told me. "It'll be amazing".

"Did - did the doctor say it was a mansion?"

Angelina nodded. "He sure did, and, what's more, there's a hot tub on the top balcony. It'll be a nice place to relax".

"Except not for me" I replied. "At least not yet, since my stitches have to stay dry".

"Sorry for mentioning it, then".

We didn't speak for a while after that, but eventually, once the doctor was away from the room, saying he'd be back in five minutes, I decided to take the opportunity to ask Angelina something.

"Angelina, do you think that there's any way the person who attacked me could be a minion of Matamoros?"

There was a heavily awkward silence in the room after that. It was to the point that I was starting to regret asking that question.

Finally, she replied with, "I'm not sure. Just because you think it _might_ have been one of the Conqueror's minions doesn't mean that it was. Might just have been some tribe of wild Pokemon that live in the woods there".

"What makes you say that?" I asked her. I was all but convinced that Matamoros had engineered my attack.

"Because after you lost consciousness, one of the Pokemon yelled at me to get out of his territory. It probably wasn't one of Matamoros's minions. In any case, we shouldn't talk about weird stuff like this, since the doctor's going to be back every minute to hook you up with another bag of antibiotics".

Angelina was correct; it was only two minutes more before the doctor arrived once again with another IV bag. After attaching it to my line, he said, "You must rest as much as possible over the next day before you are released. You don't want to tear out any of your stitches, or else...".

 _I didn't need to know,_ I thought. _That wasn't something I needed to know._

Once the doctor went back to his office, Angelina told me she was going to go down to the hospital's cafeteria in order to get some breakfast. This left me alone with my thoughts.

I'd had little doubt that Matamoros had planned my death somehow. By what was little sort of a miracle, I'd survived the attempt on my life, but there would surely be more to come.

Now that I was safe for now, I couldn't help but wonder if Angelina was right. It was easy enough for me to doubt that, since I'd been unconscious and unable to perceive what was happening to me. But at the same time, I was stuck with this one question.

 _Why would she lie to me?_

* * *

Over the next day, as I convalesced in my hospital bed, I kept on pondering that one question. It seemed so insignificant at first, but it was growing in size, much like a snowball does when you roll it against the ground in order to build a snowman.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that she was most likely telling the truth. This was perhaps not based so much in evidence as it was based on a desire to be able to continue trusting Angelina Hawley. After all, she was my best friend, or, at least, one of them.

I continued to feel more and more restless; I wasn't allowed to leave my bed except to use the restroom. I'd felt so exhausted earlier, but now I was feeling like I could take on the world if not for the continuing dull ache in my stomach. Lucario really did heal quickly, and I was discovering that firsthand.

The second day I was spending in the hospital felt interminable. Angelina did stay by my side, except when she was going to the cafeteria to eat a meal. Afterwards, she'd always bring food back for me, something I very much appreciated.

I had a hard time sleeping that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I had more dreams of Matamoros in his dungeon, and I felt like I was trying to piece more things together. Perhaps Arceus had locked the dragon in that dungeon, but Matamoros was getting closer and closer to breaking free.

 _Is it possible that those wild Pokemon_ _were his minions?_

It was crazy to think about, but it seemed possible to me. I knew that if I kept circling back to the same possibilities over and over again, I would eventually go insane. That wouldn't be beneficial to anyone except Matamoros, so I tried to drop it.

Morning couldn't come soon enough. The doctor I'd seen throughout the previous day came and took out my IV, then detached me from the heart monitor. He then turned to Angelina and said, "Your driver is waiting for you".

"Wait... _driver?"_ I asked.

Angelina nodded. "Brett Collingsworth is so rich that he has a man who drives him to the airport whenever he goes on a business trip. We're really going to have a good time at his mansion".

"I can imagine".

For the first time in a long time, I felt _free_ somehow. Perhaps it was because I was no longer stuck in a cave or a hospital bed. Those had been two types of prisons, and I was now liberated from both of them. Things were looking up, for sure.

After I signed the discharge papers, we went to the front of the hospital, which I now saw looked almost like the driveway of a fancy hotel. Clearly, we'd been in the nicest hospital in Snowpoint City (not that one would usually consider a hospital "nice", but I digress).

I saw a limousine waiting in front of the hospital with a sign saying MALCOLM BANNOCK AND ANGELINA HAWLEY.

"That must be us" Angelina said, taking my hand and leading me towards the limo.

"I can walk, thank you" I replied. Even though every step caused my stomach to throb slightly, I felt like I was getting slightly better every hour. Within a day or two, I'd be fully recovered. I silently thanked Arceus for giving me this new body.

"Hello" the driver said. "You are Malcolm Bannock and Angelina Hawley, I take it?"

Both of us nodded.

"My name's Nick Wilson, and I'll be your driver today" the man said. "I take Mr. Collingsworth to the airport whenever he has a trip. I've also taken his son home from school on a couple of occasions".

"Nice' Angelina replied.

Both of us got in the back of the limousine. After Nick closed the door and got into the driver's seat, he started up the vehicle and pulled out of the hospital's driveway.

Soon, we were driving through Snowpoint City, borne towards Mr. Collingsworth's mansion.

* * *

 **I pictured the outside of the hospital as looking like one of the hotels at Jay Peak in northern Vermont, more specifically the Tram Haus Lodge. Of course, the inside would look very different. I've been to Jay Peak a couple of times, most recently for the New Year of 2016-2017. In my opinion, the skiing there isn't as good as it is in the Alps, or even in the American West, but that's just me.**

 **In any case, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'll see you soon for Chapter 7.**


	7. Good Manors

**21 followers? Guys, you are being really great to me, and I appreciate it very much. I had a great time writing this chapter, for reasons I'll elaborate about on the bottom of this chapter.**

 **Enjoy, and please don't forget to review.**

 **Current music: Part of Me - Katy Perry**

* * *

 **MALCOLM'S POV**

It was only after we'd taken off that I saw how luxurious the limo was on the inside.

From the outside, it had been sleek and black. It had certainly looked fancy, and I had felt like I was living the lifestyle of the rich and famous, getting to travel in one. I'd only ever seen them in movies; there aren't a lot of limos in small towns in New England.

Even when we'd had our high school prom, for which I'd gone stag, I had only seen one or two couples show up in limousines. I supposed that it was considered too expensive for the majority of people to afford.

Now, however, I found myself in the back of one with Angelina. I had to be careful not to sit on my tail, but I'd gotten used to that more and more during both the time I'd spent in the cave and the time I'd spent in the hospital.

The seats were made of black leather, and there were sodas for us to drink in a mini fridge of sorts. Angelina and I each took one as we watched Snowpoint City pass us by.

"This is the ice district" the driver said, after about two or three minutes on the road. I'm a poor judge of time, so it could easily have been more than that.

"Wow" Angelina said, looking out of her window on the left side. "This is amazing, Malcolm!"

It would have been rather uncomfortable to lean in over her for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was that my stomach had still not completely healed from the knife wound. Indeed, once we got onto bumpier roads, I had no doubt that my wound would throb with every small bump we went over. I was already bracing myself for that.

I looked out of the right window and saw what looked like a hotel made of ice. I'd heard of there being ice hotels in places like Quebec and Sweden, but I'd never actually seen one in person.

"That is an ice hotel?" I asked the driver.

Nick nodded. "Yeah" he replied. "They built it entirely of ice. The beds are made of ice, as are the stairs and the floor. There's only one thing that's not made of ice there".

"What's that?" I replied.

"The toilet".

I couldn't help but laugh just a little at that. Come on, I'm a 19-year-old guy, for crying out loud. At least, I had been nineteen when I'd died, but I decided not to think about my age any more. It would only lead to greater confusion.

As Angelina gave me a slightly dirty look, I went silent once more.

 _You know you love her. You know you care._

Oh no, there was the voice in my head again. I tried to block it out. I didn't want to be distracted right now, not when we were seeing this amazing sight.

Granted, we'd been up in the hills around Snowpoint City, and we'd had decent views of the ice district from there, so it wasn't the first time we'd caught a glimpse of it.

Still, it was pretty incredible to see all of these buildings made of ice. I wondered if they had any central heating at all. On one hand, it would be pretty cold inside without that, or so one would think. I had read somewhere that ice was an insulator, though, so I could have been wrong. If they did have central heating, that could lead to the whole place melting, which would obviously have been a disaster.

 _How do they keep it all from melting?,_ I wondered. _Surely they must have some kind of system. Otherwise everything could go wrong with just one day above freezing. How many of those do they have here, though?_

"This place is amazing" Angelina said eventually. We ended up in a small amount of traffic, which wasn't too surprising; we were exiting the ice district and heading into the central area of the city.

"Mr. Collingsworth", Nick said, "lives about fifty miles south of Snowpoint City, in a town called Inatan. There's almost always snow there, but it doesn't get quite as much snow as the city".

"Nice" I replied, because I didn't really know what else to say.

"Right now, we're going through the downtown area" Nick told us. "Here, it's pretty crowded, per usual, since it's late morning. It's not quite as crowded as it often is earlier, since everyone's commuting to their jobs. We also have a very good subway system. Very reliable".

"Wow" Angelina said. As she looked out the window, it was clear to see that she was amazed at this city. "It's all so big".

"Believe it or not, this is actually the smallest major city in the Sinnoh region by population" our driver replied. "I suppose that not a lot of people want to live here thanks to the cold climate. It's not for everyone".

After a few minutes of traffic, we made our way out of the downtown area and into a few areas that were more suburban in character. It was getting less crowded here, and I was surprised that I'd hardly noticed the suburbs when we'd been in the hills surrounding Snowpoint City.

"This is the town of Nez" said Nick.

"Wait, really? That's its name?" I asked our driver.

Nick nodded. "Sure is. From here, it's roughly an hour and a half to the manor. I hope you enjoy the ride, because we're going to be seeing a lot of beautiful sights".

He wasn't kidding. As soon as we were out of Nez, we went through a quaint small town that Nick called Maku Maku. Just like with Nez, I had no idea where the name Maku Maku would have come from, but I didn't ask. I was sure that Nick would go through a long spiel about that if we let him, so I didn't want to let him.

Once we were out of Maku Maku, we reached what I could see was a dirt road. Most of it was covered in snow, but, probably due to it being the middle of June, there was a small amount of dirt showing. Pine and spruce trees lined the sides, and we began gradually climbing up the hill.

"The town of Inatan", Nick said, "is located at an elevation of 4,243 feet above sea level. It's not high enough that one would be likely to get altitude sickness, but it's high enough that we do get a great deal of snow".

"You just said that there was less snow there than in Snowpoint City" Angelina told him.

"Sorry" Nick replied. "Must have made a mistake there. In Snowpoint City, while it is very cold and snowy indeed, the climate is moderated somewhat thanks to the ocean nearby. It is not so in Inatan, thanks to its higher elevation".

For some time after that, I didn't pay too much attention to what Nick was saying. I was too focused on the scenery outside of the limo, because, let me tell you, it was pretty spectacular.

At one point, we climbed a hill that seemed to go on for a very long time. I felt really bad for anyone who would try to walk or bike up that hill, because it would have taken forever and been extremely exhausting, especially with snow on the ground.

The top of the hill, however, had an incredible view of fields far below us, as well as, off in the distance, a cold gray ocean. It was a cloudy day, but even if the sun had been shining, I somehow didn't think that the ocean would have been anything other than this dark blue-gray color. It somehow seemed natural, in a way, that this ocean would always be the same color regardless of the sky's color.

 _Oh well,_ I thought. _I guess I'll find out soon enough. Unless this town isn't anywhere near the ocean._

We kept on driving, and I was growing restless once more. I hadn't been able to walk much while I'd been in the hospital, and I hadn't been able to walk _at all_ in the cave. As a result, the brief amount of walking I'd done when we were heading out to this limousine had felt like heaven.

Now, however, things were different. I knew that it couldn't be too much longer before we arrived at the mansion. Even so, the ride felt like it took ten hours instead of less than two hours.

Finally, after going through a small town (that, in hindsight, must have been the town of Inatan), we stopped in front of a large gate with the letter C chiseled in cast-iron on the front of it. I could only assume that the C stood for Collingsworth, since this was his estate, after all.

 _Is it? I sure hope so, because I'm not willing to stay in this back seat for much longer!_

"We're here" said Nick. "At least, there's only a bit longer. We're on the property of the estate".

Angelina, who had evidently fallen asleep at some point that I hadn't noticed, said, "It's _that_ big?"

"Yes, the Collingsworths are one of the wealthiest families in all of Sinnoh. The property is four thousand feet square, or roughly 367 acres".

"Oh, wow" I blurted out, sounding childish, but I didn't particularly care about that.

After Nick said something to the person guarding the gate, said gate swung backwards to admit us. We began making our way down a narrow, windy road that kind of reminded me of the one at the country club back at home. I'd only been there once or twice, but this certainly appeared to be a place where rich people lived.

There was even a small river on the estate, evidently, because we crossed over it on a bridge that was part of the road. After we turned one more corner, the house came into view.

When I'd been told that it was a mansion, I hadn't been lied to. This was easily the largest house I'd ever seen, and it did look rather like the clubhouse at a country club. I almost expected there to be a golf course and a pool there, but that obviously wasn't going to be the case in this frosty northern climate where it snowed all year round.

 _Then again,_ I thought, _if they're this rich, enough to have such a huge property, it would only make sense that they'd have a pool in their basement. Maybe, just maybe, there's a mini golf course in there. Man, I haven't played mini golf in so long._

The house had three floors and extended pretty far outward. I was absolutely positive that there had to be a basement, and I wondered just how much this house had cost to buy or build. Were one to buy this whole estate, it would no doubt be an eight-figure cost.

Nick drove us into a garage that had space for twelve cars. However, there were only five cars in there, not including the limousine we'd just been driven here in.

"Wait...so you have a twelve-car garage, and how many cars do you have?" Angelina asked Nick.

"Six" the driver replied. "The other six are just in case we buy more".

This was breathtakingly excessive, or so I thought. Where I had lived in my first life, a family was considered well-off if they had more than two cars. It was rather insane, in my opinion, to have so many. What would you even use so many cars for?

Nick led us out of the garage and back into the frosty air. It might have been June, but the sky was still that light gray color that threatens snow. I had little doubt that it would deliver; I knew enough about weather in order to be pretty sure of that.

He led us a little further up the driveway to the entrance to the manor. After ringing the doorbell, we waited for about half a minute before the door was opened.

"Hello" Nick said. "I have Malcolm and Angelina here with me".

Almost immediately, I felt a small amount of nervousness. _This could be a trap,_ I thought. I'd read enough fantasy novels back in my previous life to know that places like this, large, pristine mansions, had one thing in common: If it seemed too good to be true, it probably was.

The person standing on the other side of the door was not really a person. Rather, it was a Lucario who clearly looked dignified. I didn't know why he looked that way, he just did.

"Hello to the two of you" he said, addressing us. "My name is Brett Collingsworth. Welcome to my humble abode".

* * *

 **ANGELINA'S POV**

I had to suppress a snort when Mr. Collingsworth called his home _humble._

Having a twelve-car garage when you only have six cars? Having an estate large enough for a golf course? Pardon me, but that really doesn't seem humble to me. I wondered exactly where and how the man had made all of his money, because you don't get that just from being a doctor or lawyer.

The interior of the manor looked just as fancy as the outside. The ground was all carpeted in a rich dark green color, and pine garlands were wound around the banister, much like a decoration some families might have for Christmas.

"It's not Christmastime, though" I told Mr. Collingsworth. "Why do you have Christmas decorations up, Mr. Collingsworth?"

The businessman shrugged. "I suppose that it's because it's always winter here. People this far north, we like to be festive, you know? Having Christmas decorations up certainly doesn't hurt that".

He had a point there.

"And please", he continued, "while you're at it, please call me Brett. I'd much appreciate it that way".

For someone so wealthy, he seemed rather down-to-earth. Clearly, he didn't care about being called by his last name, even if it was a relatively fancy one. We stood in the foyer for some more time before Brett said, "I think it is time that I show you around this place. Lunch is almost ready, and it's supposed to be really good. They're making steak".

"Who's making steak?" I asked. I noticed that Malcolm rolled his eyes at me, as if my question was stupid.

"The chefs are" Brett replied. "That's the way it is here. We have chefs who cook for us".

Just when I'd thought he was down-to-earth, I was reconsidering that notion. It now seemed like he was trying to flaunt his wealth, not a quality I appreciated in anyone. Indeed, I could detect a slight amount of arrogance through... _what was that?_

It felt as though there was some other force dictating things, something that hung around everybody and everything in this world. I was sure that I'd find out what it was somehow, but I decided not to ask that question right away.

 _I remember one of the doctors told me about aura at the hospital,_ I thought. _Is it that?_

If it was, that would certainly make sense. While I'd been beside Malcolm's bed, waiting for him to wake up, I'd had a lot of time to think. The doctor caring for him had told me about aura at one point. That was why he was healing so fast.

But I'd always heard about aura in my previous life, too. Pretty much everyone who'd mentioned it to me had made sure to point out that it was mainly something New Age folks believed in. I'd been told not to set too much store by that, so, for the most part, I considered it to be silly.

 _But is aura real here? That'd be pretty cool...I guess._

"That's nice" Malcolm told Brett. "Must be nice, being rich".

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, before Brett responded.

"Well", the businessman replied, "it makes a lot of things easier and a few things harder. Isn't that what they say?"

Neither of us responded; we didn't know that many rich people in our first life, and neither of us had heard that saying before.

Brett led us down the hallway to what looked to be the largest room in the house. It was long, with a ceiling roughly twelve feet high and a floor-to-ceiling window that included a door.

"This is great" Malcolm said.

"Yeah. Bought this mansion for only five million, what a steal. I suppose that the reason it's a lot cheaper than it could be is because the location is considered undesirable".

I decided then and there that I didn't like Brett Collingsworth that much. He was casually talking about his money, and it sure seemed like he was flaunting it. Talking about buying this enormous property for "only" five million dollars, or whatever the currency was in this world...yeah, that wasn't something I liked.

As for the room we'd found ourselves in, it had a kitchen area on one side, with a counter with several stools next to it. There was also a kitchen table and a stove, with a microwave oven in addition to those things.

"That's nice" I said, since I couldn't help myself. I wished that I would have lived in a home that nice.

"And there", Brett told us, "is my son, Lucas".

The Lucario businessman was pointing at the couch in the area of the room that appeared to be more like a living room. There was a flat-screen TV there, because of course there was.

Sitting on the couch was a Lucario with white fur.

Malcolm gasped. "That's your son?" he asked Brett.

The businessman nodded. "Lucas!" he announced.

The white-furred Lucario, who looked much younger than his father, took his headphones off and turned to face us. His eyes were the same color as his father's, and I saw that he was wearing a yellow scarf.

"We have visitors" Brett told his son. "Malcolm Bannock and Angelina Hawley".

"Hello" Lucas said. Even though he had appeared shy when he was looking away from me, now that he turned to face us, he did not look shy at all. Rather, he looked pretty outgoing, or, at least, the expression on his face did.

"Yes" the businessman said. Turning to Malcolm and I, he said, "I'll show you guys the upstairs, and then we'll come back down for lunch. They're almost done making it in the basement kitchens".

I was pretty impressed that they had kitchens in the basement here, but I supposed that I shouldn't have been surprised at anything. This was, after all, the home of a very rich person.

I stole one last glance outside, and man, was it beautiful. I saw the grounds, lightly caked with snow. I saw a mountain in the distance, far below, which had areas for ski trails cut out. At least, that's what it looked like.

"Is that a ski mountain?" I asked Brett.

He nodded. "Lucas, my wife and I often go there to ski. The perks of this climate is that you can ski pretty much all year round; it's quite nice".

Coming from New England, I was no stranger to cold winter weather, but it was somewhat difficult for me to imagine it being that way all of the time. I figured that, if I lived here, I might get sick of the cold weather. Then again, I had little doubt that the Collingsworth family, rich as they were, took vacations to the more tropical areas of this world.

Brett led us upstairs and past several bedrooms. Pointing to one of them, he said, "That's where you and Malcolm will be sleeping during your stay at the manor. There's an adjacent bathroom".

I looked inside the bedroom. It didn't look particularly fancy, just a bunk bed and a drawer made of dark wood, with red plaid blankets on the bed. It looked rustic in a way, something I really liked. Now that I came to think of it, the whole manor looked kind of rustic.

"Nice" Malcolm said. "I like this place a lot".

"There is one more thing I want to show you" Brett told both of us. "The third floor is the game room, where we have video games, pool, ping-pong, and more. You'll see it more later, but I want to show you the roof first".

The businessman led us up one staircase to the third floor. This was essentially a long hallway with the various games he'd listed on a green carpet. Finally, there was another staircase that led up to what I could only assume was the roof.

Brett was the next one to speak.

"Be warned: This staircase can be wet and slippery. Just be careful, and you should be fine".

As soon as he opened the door to the staircase, I felt the air become a lot colder. _Of course,_ I thought. _This staircase is partly outdoors._

After we climbed this staircase, we reached the roof. There was what appeared to be a Jacuzzi with a cover, and a very nice view.

"Wow" I said audibly; I couldn't help myself. I could see not only the ski mountain here, but the tops of the pine forest. I could see thickets of trees, as well as frigid, rushing rivers that I knew would be very dangerous to swim in. Of course, it's not like I was going to try.

"But yeah, at night we often go up and hang out in the hot tub. It's very nice to see it snow in the darkness, especially when it's just flurries. _That_ is gorgeous".

"I can only imagine" I replied.

Malcolm, at that point, appeared rather sad. He began looking down towards the roof. Fortunately, there were parapets on top to guard the edges of the roof, because it was rather slippery up there.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"I'll tell you what's wrong" Malcolm replied. "We've got a nice Jacuzzi up here, and I won't be able to use it until my stitches dissolve".

"Ah, yes, I was told about that" said Brett. "That is rather unfortunate, but you know that the doctors have your best interests at heart. In any case, we should go down to the kitchen again. Lunch is probably almost ready".

I stole one last glance at the mountains and forests before following Brett and Malcolm back to the staircase. As we made our way back towards the kitchen, I only had one thought.

 _How the hell did he buy this house for only five million?_

* * *

 **When Nick is driving Malcolm and Angelina to the mansion, I was reminded of the drive from the airport in Latin America to the first hotel we stayed at. This was on the trip I took over Christmas vacation. The driver was keen to point out everything we were passing, something I very much appreciated.**

 **In any case, I've been back stateside for a week, and it's nice to have consistent Wi-Fi again. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you guys next time.**


	8. The Facts of Life

**Sorry for taking longer than usual with this chapter. And sorry that it's so short. I often find myself less motivated to write during the weekends, which is kind of ironic when you think about it. You'd think that I'd be more able to write when I have less other things to do, but that isn't always the case.**

 **Also, thank you all for over 1,000 views to this story! That's always a nice milestone to reach.**

 **Enjoy the chapter!**

 **Current music: Runnin' Across the Tracks - Billy Talent**

* * *

 **MALCOLM'S POV**

"I'm telling you, this place is pretty spectacular" Angelina told me as we were making our way back towards the combined kitchen/living room.

I nodded, but I didn't say anything.

I supposed that the place was nice enough. After having some lunch, having a nice afternoon here, and a good night's sleep, I would probably like it more. Right now, however, I was just too preoccupied with several other things.

For one, I couldn't stop thinking about Matamoros. Even during the ride to this manor, that thought had kept getting into the back of my mind. It was like a little man with an ice pick on the inside of my brain. Every time he would pick at the ice that was my brain, he'd trigger that thought again, along with a slight pain in my head.

"Are you okay, Malcolm?" Angelina asked me. "You seem really quiet".

"What?" I replied. "Oh, yeah, that's just my stomach. It still hurts".

Normally, when someone says that their stomach hurts, they usually feel nauseous or something like that. But that wasn't the case at all for me, and Angelina knew it. She knew that it was because of the wound I'd received.

"It'll be fine" she said. "After lunch, I'm sure you'll feel better once you have something in your stomach".

I really hoped she was right, but the slight headaches I kept getting every minute or so weren't going away. I resolved that I'd drink more water, but I didn't think that would help. Not completely, anyway, for the problem wasn't something that I wanted to tell Angelina about right here.

"Are you okay?" Brett asked me.

"Yeah, I'm fine" I told the businessman. "It's just because of my wound".

"Ah. Okay" he replied.

We arrived in the kitchen again, and I noticed that Lucas Collingsworth was no longer present on the sofa. _Okay, then,_ I thought. _Where did he go?_

And then I saw the lunch table, and the white-furred Lucario was sitting there. "Lunch is almost ready" he said. "Mom told me it's five more minutes. Probably three more, now that I think about it".

"Where is your mother?" Brett asked his son.

"Oh, probably somewhere around here" Lucas replied. "She can't have gone far".

I didn't know if it would be a good idea to ask Lucas the question I was thinking about. I didn't want to regret doing it, but I also didn't want to regret _not_ doing it.

 _Fuck it. I will._

Turning to Lucas, I asked him, "Can I ask you a question, Lucas?"

"Yeah, sure. What is it?"

I knew that there was no turning back now. "How did your fur turn white?"

"Oh, that" he replied. "I'm pretty sure I got sick or something when I was really little. It must have been that, they said".

"I see" I replied.

Angelina turned to face Lucas. "I'm really sorry that happened to you...Lucas, right?"

"Yeah" the white-furred Lucario replied. "But it's fine, I'm better now. Just have this nice fur color. It's a lot like the snow, and I like it that way, you know?"

Both of us liked the snow a lot, so we both nodded.

Two minutes later, a door leading to the kitchen area opened, and in walked a group of chefs carrying trays. They were all men probably in their twenties or thirties, and they wore fancy coats. I wondered how much Lucas's father paid them.

"That must be lunch" Angelina said.

"It sure is" one of the chefs replied. At each of the five positions at the table, the chefs set a bowl of some kind of soup. They then walked back into the kitchen.

"We have three-course lunches here" said Lucas, looking at both of us, away from the view (which was probably not as difficult for him, since he was used to it). "Soup's the first course, and then we have the main course, and they'll serve us dessert after that".

"Fancy" I blurted out, not realizing my mistake at first. At least, not before Angelina pinched me on the shoulder.

 _Of course,_ I thought. _It wouldn't be fancy to Lucas, because he's used to this. Perhaps he is just a spoiled rich kid._

Lucas didn't seem mad about it, though. A few seconds later, both of his parents came to the table and sat down. Angelina and myself also took our places at various seats around the table, and then it was time to eat.

I looked at my soup. It looked like gazpacho, cold tomato soup, but it was hard to be sure. I certainly had never seen gazpacho look so fancy.

 _Wow, they know how to make everything fancy here,_ I thought bitterly. _This is exactly what I pictured a rich person's home to look like._

Growing up, we hadn't exactly been poor, but I'd always desired something more. I had always wished that we could have had enough money to travel to places like Europe, because that would have been amazing.

 _I wonder if the Collingsworth family travels to other countries?,_ I thought. _They must, since they're just so rich._

I noticed that Brett was looking at me with a slightly odd expression, and I realized that I hadn't even started my soup yet. I got a spoonful and put it in my mouth.

It tasted pretty good. I like cold tomato soup a lot, and these chefs really were delivering. It was some of the best I'd ever had.

 _I can't wait to see what's for the main course._

Occasionally, Lucas or one of his parents would ask someone a question about their day, and some small talk would be made. However, for the most part, we ate in relative silence, punctuated only by sips of water.

Once all of us were done with the soup, our dishes were taken away, and they were soon replaced with other dishes. These appeared to be some sort of wrap, but I wasn't entirely sure, since I'd never seen a wrap look that elaborate before.

What do I mean by elaborate, you might ask? Well, it just seemed as though they were cut in such a way as to be fancy. It was just like everything else here.

On second thought, maybe I didn't want to be so rich after all. I'd always wondered what it would be like to have such an extravagant lifestyle, and I realized now that it really wasn't too spectacular. Yes, it would be nice to have the financial security, and with it there would be more happiness, but, at a certain point, there were diminishing returns.

I dug into the wrap, and it tasted like heaven. The tomatoes, the lettuce, the cheese...it was all perfect, somehow. The chefs that the Collingsworth family hired were clearly world-class, because this food was something you'd find at a five-star hotel, not somebody's home.

 _But this is no ordinary home. This is the Collingsworth manor. I suppose that I should expect the extravagant here._

"I'm loving this" I told Mrs. Collingsworth. "What's your name, by the way? I don't believe you ever told me".

"It's Ashley" she replied. "And thanks. Our network connects us with the freshest fruits in Hoenn, as well as Johto, which has the ideal climate for growing some of these ingredients".

 _Do these people really love to flaunt their wealth or what?,_ I wondered. How much did it cost to transport those goods from Hoenn all the way up to northern Sinnoh?

We kept eating, and, like it had before, conversation wasn't easy to come by. For the most part, we were pretty quiet, and it was only every few minutes that someone would say a word or two.

Once we were all finished with our wraps, they were taken away, and then they were quickly replaced with dessert.

 _At least this is something I recognize,_ I thought.

It was apple pie. Granted, the shape of a star had been cut into the dough on top, but it was still apple pie.

Soon, the conversation started up again.

"When are you starting cyber college, Lucas?" Brett asked his son.

 _Would Brett not know that?,_ I wondered. _How could he not know that? It's his own son we're talking about here!_

"It starts on August 29" Lucas replied. "And today is June 18. So I still have seventy-two days until then".

 _Nerd!_

"Wait, you're going to go to college online?" Angelina asked Lucas.

The white-furred Lucario nodded. "There aren't that many universities close by. There's only one, Snowpoint University, and it's kind of...how do you say it...trashy".

I had to stifle a gasp. How could Lucas call Snowpoint University trashy? That sounded like it would be so far beneath him.

I kept thinking about stereotypes of rich people that I'd heard about during my first life. Every time Lucas mentioned that something wasn't quite up to snuff in the eyes of his parents, I was going to be checking off a box in my head.

 _And to think that I'd thought of him as down-to-earth for such a rich Lucario. But no, he's just as stuck-up as a lot of rich people._

Soon enough, lunch was over, and I was somewhat relieved. Yes, the food had been amazing, some of the best I'd ever eaten, in either of my lives. However, I couldn't help but think about how Brett and Ashley had been watching me very carefully as I'd been eating. Clearly, they were waiting for me to mess up somehow so that they could correct me.

I decided then that I rather hated the Collingsworths. Unfortunately, for now, Angelina and myself were stuck with them until we had somewhere else to go, something else to do. Right now, we didn't have that.

The only question was, how much longer would it be until I told Angelina that it was time to leave? I wasn't sure that she'd be fully receptive to that idea; after all, this place appeared very comfortable indeed.

And then, of course, there was Matamoros. Did he know that I was here, even now? He had to, right? Wasn't he extremely powerful, so much so that even Arceus needed the help of me, a puny mortal?

 _The longer I am with the Collingsworths, the more danger I put them in._ I knew that with 100% certainty.

 _But would that be such a bad thing? After all, they're pretty shitty people._

 _No. No matter who they are, no matter what they do, they don't deserve the fate that Matamoros wants for us. That's just too extreme._

But I knew that, eventually, Angelina and I would have to make our move.

* * *

"Want to go up to the hot tub?" Lucas asked Angelina. She was standing right next to me, so he was probably addressing me as well. I wasn't too sure.

"Yeah" she replied. "That sounds quite nice, actually".

"Sweet. And you, too? My parents don't want me to go in there alone".

I shrugged. "I'm up for that".

"Okay" Lucas said. "We'll just have to tell my parents, though. They're kind of...well, not exactly _helicopter parents,_ but…".

"I think that the word _overprotective_ would be a good one to use here" Angelina replied.

"Sure, then. They're overprotective. It's like, they really expect me to tell them where I'm going to be at any given time. And then they made me take a kidnapping safety class, for lack of a better word".

"What's that?" I asked Lucas.

"Well, it's no secret that my family is very rich" he replied. "Combined with my white fur, suffice it to say that I've always had something of a target on my back. They want me - alive - so that they can get money from my parents, since they'll have to pay ransom to get me back".

"Is that why you're going to a cyber college?" Angelina said.

Lucas nodded. "Part of that is because my parents think that the local universities aren't quite good enough for me. I suppose they think that I'm too smart for them or whatever".

 _Maybe not too smart,_ I thought. _Maybe too rich._

"And yeah", said the white-furred Lucario, "part of it is so that I am less likely to get kidnapped. Except for when we go on trips, I rarely leave this mansion".

I tried to imagine that. Both Angelina and myself had grown up in a small town in New England, and it had been a pretty friendly place. We'd been able to go around and do whatever we wanted, _when_ ever we wanted to do it.

Now I tried to imagine Lucas. Only when he went off to a foreign land was he free to roam around like he wanted to. Anywhere that people recognized his family, he was a target for kidnapping.

"Have you ever received any threats?" I asked him, perhaps against my own better judgment.

Lucas held up two fingers. "Twice" he said. "Once when I was seven, once when I was thirteen. Both times, they just called in the security until the threat was over, and then I could go back to my normal life".

"Have you always been going to cyber school?" Angelina asked Lucas.

The white-furred Lucario laughed. "Guys, that's enough questions! It feels like you keep punching me with them! Let's go to the hot tub".

None of us needed to wear clothes, so we simply followed Lucas up the two flights of stairs into the game room, and then we made our way to the roof, where the Jacuzzi was still covered. Lucas lifted off the cover and steam immediately started rising from it.

"Get in" he said.

The step next to the hot tub felt cold and slippery as usual, but I managed to avoid slipping as I got in. I then started looking towards the mountains.

From the roof, the view was just so breathtakingly gorgeous. Even if I felt bad for Lucas for the various reasons I've mentioned above, the fact remained that he was pretty lucky to have a view like this.

"Get down, Malcolm" Angelina said. "I'm just about to get in. And what about your stitches?"

With a gasp, I remembered that I wasn't supposed to get my stitches wet. I looked down at my chest, and...nothing was there. It seemed that they'd dissolved.

 _That, or they fell into the hot tub,_ I thought bitterly. _I really hope it's the former._

"They're dissolved?" asked Lucas. Evidently, he'd been told about the injury I'd incurred at the hands of some wild Pokemon, because he didn't seem surprised that I'd had stitches.

"It would seem so" I replied. "I guess that means I can get in".

I eased myself down into the hot tub, and it was just the perfect temperature, perfectly relaxing and comfortable. It wasn't too hot or too cold, it was just right.

"Wow, this is nice" I said. "Lucas, how much did this cost?"

It was perhaps impulsive of me to ask that question, but I did it anyway. I was curious about the way rich people lived, not having been one myself in my first life.

"I don't know" he replied. "I think it was ten thousand or something like that".

"Ten thousand, wow" Angelina replied.

"Yeah" Lucas said.

There was something slightly irritating about the way Lucas casually tossed around numbers like that. He didn't quite seem to understand that those numbers meant different things to others. It meant hours of work in order to get enough money in order to buy something.

But Brett Collingsworth had probably just thought, _Okay, I want a Jacuzzi for the roof of my mansion. Ten thousand dollars? No biggie._

"I hope that you don't think I'm some kind of spoiled brat" Lucas said eventually. "To me, this is just a fact of life, you know?"

 _As a matter of fact, Lucas, that's EXACTLY what I think about you,_ I thought. I didn't say it, because I didn't want to be rude, but it was hard when that was exactly what was on my mind.

"But have you only ever gone to school online?" Angelina asked him. "Have you ever gone to a public school in real life?"

"Yes, and no" the white-furred Lucario replied. "I've been homeschooled my entire life, or you could call it that. The servants taught me some things until I was old enough to use the computer, and since then that's what I've been doing for school".

I suddenly felt more than a little sorry for Lucas. At the same time, I felt like I understood him a little better.

He might have been rich. He might have gotten to go on vacation to expensive places a lot of the time. But in terms of company with other living beings, other than the various people who worked at the manor, he was very poor indeed.

 _Maybe there's more than one way to be rich,_ I thought.

While it was nice to be chilling (heh) in the hot tub with Lucas and Angelina, I could never lose sight of what this afterlife was for. I hadn't been resurrected from the dead just to hang out in a hot tub on top of a fancy mansion.

No. My purpose was far greater, my destiny far different than that.

And, in many cases, different can be deadly.


	9. Lucky Scarves and Lullabies

**This was a deeply emotional chapter for me to write; I'll explain why at the bottom. I figured that it was a good place to end it, even if this is a pretty short chapter as well.**

 **I mean, all I want to say is on the bottom of the chapter anyway, so I guess I'll leave it for that. Enjoy the chapter.**

 **Current music: It's Time - Imagine Dragons**

* * *

 **MALCOLM'S POV**

Even in the midst of hanging out in the hot tub, it was very hard to forget the truly important things. Namely, our battle against Matamoros.

I had to admit that I was somewhat surprised that the dragon, the Conqueror, hadn't revealed himself to this world yet. Presumably he was still stuck in his prison, unable to break free.

 _The question is, how much longer is it going to be until he does break free?_

I certainly didn't want to be anywhere in this Pokemon world when that did happen. However, Arceus hadn't given me any ways to get out of this world and back to my home world. And, more to the point, I was just too much of a coward to ask him.

And then there was the question of what would happen if I _did_ go back to the human world, the world that I'd grown up in and lived nineteen years in before stupidly driving off a bridge with Angelina in the car with me.

 _Officially, the record is that both of us died in a car accident. If we did come back, there would sure be a lot of explaining to do. Isn't faking your own death illegal pretty much everywhere?_

Indeed, it probably was. In that case, Angelina and myself could get in a lot of trouble. It was probably a moot point, anyway, because there was most likely no way we could persuade Arceus to let us go back to Earth.

 _Although,_ I thought, _perhaps my human body has never been found. It might still be at the bottom of that river._

I didn't know if that was a pleasing thought or not, so I decided to just focus on what was at hand.

I noticed that something was right on the rim of the hot tub, where Lucas might have placed a can of soda. It was what appeared to be a long yellow tube of fabric.

This was no ordinary tube of fabric, however. There were a large amount of wavy yellow lines on it, much like the pattern of waves on the ocean. In addition to that, there was an olive-colored pattern that was clearly made to look like ropes on an ocean vessel. The whole fabric piece appeared to have a nautical theme.

"What is that, Lucas?" I asked the white-furred Lucario, pointing at the yellow tube of fabric.

"Oh, that?" he replied. "It's just a good luck charm that I have".

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not a very superstitious person at all. I didn't believe in karma, or the unlucky properties of the number thirteen, or anything even remotely similar to that. Of course, now that I'd ended up in this crazy afterlife world, I'd had to reconsider everything I'd believed before in my first life.

"Where did you get it?" Angelina asked him. She might have been thinking of the same thing as me, or maybe she'd just noticed it after I'd mentioned it.

"When I was sixteen, we were on a cruise in Hoenn, and my parents bought it for me. I was told that, if I wore it, it would give me good luck on the ocean, or anywhere else, for that matter. Of course, on that trip, I got a stomach bug".

"Oof" I replied. "But you didn't throw it away?"

"Nope" Lucas said. "I always figured that it was only responsible for good luck, not bad luck. It was probably no fault of the scarf that I got sick; after all, everybody else on the ship did too".

 _Of course it's not responsible for bad luck,_ I thought cynically. _It's a fucking scarf!_

I didn't want to say that out loud, though. I'd always been taught, from a very young age, to respect other people's beliefs. Even now, in my second life, I still wanted to follow that principle.

"I'm really sorry to hear that" Angelina replied. "Must have ruined your vacation, huh?"

"Kind of did, to be honest. They wouldn't let any of us go anywhere on the ship after that. Really sucked, even after I got better".

We both nodded. Really, what else were we supposed to have done to show that we understood?

"What places have you been to, Lucas?" asked Angelina eventually. By now, the conversation had died down a little bit, and now we were just relaxing in the Jacuzzi.

"Well, we've been skiing in the Coronet Range quite a bit. They say that that's the best place for skiing that there is in the world".

It was then that I committed a major gaffe, perhaps the worst gaffe of my life. For a long time afterwards, I would wonder exactly why I'd been so stupid as to say this.

"Oh, so it's like the Alps, then" I replied.

Angelina slapped me in the face with her paw. Trust me, that is rather painful.

"Excuse me, but what are the Alps?" Lucas asked.

 _Fuck,_ I thought. _Now, I'm going to have to explain everything to him. He'll know that we're undead humans who were turned into Lucario by Arceus! How could I have made such a huge error?_

"They're a mountain range in our world" I said. I felt as though I were in a trap now, and there was no way out without spilling the beans.

Angelina turned to me. "Do you want to explain everything?"

"Sure" said Lucas. "I can't wait to hear about this other world. I love to travel".

"Well, we're originally humans from Earth" I said. "We were both turned into Lucario by Arceus after we died in a car accident".

"Wait, really?" asked Lucas, sounding somewhat shocked. "I feel like I heard about that before".

Now it was my turn to be shocked. "What do you mean?"

"Well", the white-furred Lucario replied, "I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but I feel like this has something to do with this dragon I've been seeing in my dreams".

"What dragon?" Angelina replied. Now she sounded worried, and, honestly, I was worried as well. I'd thought that our time at the Collingsworth manor could be a nice respite from worrying about Matamoros, but that was evidently not going to be the case.

"He's really big, and he's crimson, gold, and indigo. When he breathes fire...it's bright blue, like an icy cavern. It's not the usual orange color".

"And what was the dragon's name?" I asked him. "Because I've been dreaming about a dragon that looks pretty much exactly like what you're describing".

Lucas hesitated. "I think it was Dannemora or something like that...I can't quite remember. But I know it sounded like that".

"The dragon I've heard about is called Matamoros" I said. "Is that the same one?"

"Yeah, I think that's what his name was".

 _In. Sane. That is insane. Lucas Collingsworth is dreaming about the same dragon we've been seeing! What are the odds?_

"We've been dreaming about the same dragon" said Angelina. "Does that mean anything?"

"It has to" Lucas replied. "It just has to, because it doesn't make any sense otherwise".

I could tell that all three of our minds were running a mile a second, trying to figure out some explanation for this that would make sense. Really, the only one that worked would be that Arceus intended for us to meet.

If so, that was a relief. I was happy to know that, in this confusing Pokemon world afterlife, I was doing something right, that maybe, just maybe, there would be a happy outcome at the end.

 _But,_ I thought, _isn't this kind of a happy outcome, being here at the Collingsworth manor?_

 _No. Ultimately, the only thing that will give us a happy ending is to defeat Matamoros once and for all._

"I've always wondered why I got white fur" Lucas told us.

"Didn't you get really sick or something like that? Isn't that what you told us?" Angelina asked him.

Lucas nodded. "That _is_ the story, albeit only part of it. You probably want to know the whole thing, don't you?"

"Yeah" I replied. "Could you tell me the whole story, if that's fine?"

"Sure" Lucas said. "In a way, I can use this to test my powers".

"Wait", Angelina replied, "what sort of powers do you have? Do any of them come from your fur color?"

"No" the white-furred Lucario told her. "Well, not directly. For the same reason as my white fur, perhaps. But it's kind of a long story. Close your eyes".

"Wait...why do I have to…".

"Just trust me; that's the only way I can show you".

I noticed that Angelina's red eyes were no longer visible; she'd closed them. The way Lucas was saying it, it sure seemed tempting to close mine as well.

 _It's very dangerous to fall asleep in a hot tub,_ I thought. _I might drown, or get overheated…_

But I couldn't help it.

* * *

My dream, if you could call it that, felt very real, not like a dream at all. I'm not the type of person who usually remembers his dreams; at least, I wasn't in my first life. This time around, however, I was already used to things being very, very different.

At first, my eyes weren't open, so I couldn't see where I was in this dream. However, I quickly rectified this situation, and I found that I was...floating?

I felt rather weightless, much like a bird must feel when it's in flight. This was quite a feeling, and I wanted to savor it as much as possible; who knew when I'd get it again?

 _Well, Arceus probably knows. But then, he knows EVERYTHING. Talk about a Big Brother figure._

I might have been weightless in this dream, but I wasn't _free._ As I looked around, I could see that I was in a normal-sized, white room, with machines all over the place. Outside the window, snow was falling, even though a calendar said that it was the beginning of August. Clearly, this was the great white north.

It appeared to be a hospital room of sorts. There were two beds there. One was normal-sized, on top of which was sitting a Lucario who looked to be in her mid-thirties. (Lucario had pretty much the same average lifespans as humans, so if she was, say, thirty-five years old, that would make sense given how she looked).

The other bed was a crib, with high metal bars around it. Next to the crib was a heart monitor, beeping every second or so. I'm a poor judge of that, but the rhythm seemed to be fairly normal to me. Also, there was an IV stand with a bag connected to a tube on it. The tube ran down into the crib, where it was presumably attached to someone's arm.

 _A baby is sick,_ I thought. _That must be hard to watch for anyone._

I like to think that I'm not a heartless psychopath. Arceus might not have thought the same when he'd sentenced me to this crazy afterlife, but who really cared what the deity thought?

Also...there was the sound of crying. Lots of it.

 _Why is Lucas showing us this?,_ I wondered. _It's just a sick baby in the hospital. This stuff happens all the time._

The female Lucario, the one who wasn't sick, looked very worried indeed. If you'd told me that she was on the edge of tears, I would have said, "Oh, really?" sarcastically, because it was clear to me that that was possible, even likely.

 _The baby is her child,_ I thought. _Yes. She's staying at the hospital with her son. How sweet of her._

Eventually, I felt as though I'd been grabbed by the ankle by a hook or something similar, because I was lifted higher into the air and taken over to the crib...and I saw a sight there that I found quite creepy.

An infant Riolu, who couldn't have been more than a few months old, was lying in the bed, crying his eyes out. It was clear to see that he was in pain. And, like I had suspected, he was hooked up to an IV tube running from the liquid bag to his left. Several stickers were on his chest as well, connected to a machine that was recording his heart rate and breathing.

The machines were something that didn't disturb me too much. It was clear that he was being watched very closely, and, if something did go wrong, the doctors in the hospital would know about it right away and be able to deal with said problem.

Far more disturbing was the color of the Riolu's fur. It was still blue, the normal color for a Pokemon of its species, but it was a far lighter blue than it would normally be. It was as if the blue was slowly being drained out and replaced with...white.

 _This is Lucas as an infant,_ I realized with a start. _He mentioned getting seriously ill before. This must be what happened._

Sure enough, I could see a small bracelet around his right wrist, the one that didn't have an IV in it. When I allowed my vision to "zoom in" on it, I saw that the bracelet did indeed read LUCAS ZANTRY COLLINGSWORTH, BORN JUNE 24, 2000, FEVER OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.

 _Poor guy. I hate having fevers. And he must be in a lot of pain, too. He's crying so much._

According to the digital clock on the wall of the hospital room, it was roughly ten in the evening, but it was clear to see that the infant version of Lucas wasn't going to sleep anytime soon. He was in too much pain for that.

"I'm coming" Ashley said. I remembered that Ashley was Lucas's mother's name from the meal I'd shared with her and her family earlier that day.

She reached into the crib and lifted her son out of it. It was clear that she was being as careful as possible not to detach him from any of the wires.

Ashley carried Lucas and his IV stand over to her bed and held the infant Riolu on her lap.

 _She's probably going to try to sing him to sleep,_ I thought. _So that he doesn't have to suffer as much._

Sure enough, the mother Lucario began singing some sort of lullaby to her son. She was hoping that Lucas would fall asleep in her arms and be free from pain, until he inevitably woke up again crying in agony.

I'm not normally the kind of guy to get emotional, but seeing Ashley attempt to console Lucas was definitely worthy of a tear or two. I couldn't help but shed a few seeing the scene.

It was very plain to tell that the worst part for Ashley was that her son couldn't tell her what was hurting; she knew what her son was going through, but she couldn't know at the same time.

Suddenly, a doctor came in. I could tell that he was a doctor because he wore the traditional white scrubs, and he looked very professional indeed.

"Just came to check on Lucas" said the doctor. "Is he doing all right?"

"Yes, still feeding normally" Ashley replied. "And I haven't noticed anything too abnormal about his heart rate. It just keeps beeping at a constant speed".

The doctor nodded. "Well, the good news is, if the cultures don't grow bacteria, the two of you can go home tomorrow, as that's when we're likely to know if continued intravenous infusions of antibiotics will be required".

"I see" the mother Lucario said.

"Yes" the doctor replied. "The nurses have been taking his temperature regularly, and the fever is starting to come down. In someone this small, we tend to want to bring them down as quickly as possible".

Ashley didn't say anything, but she continued to stroke her son's back carefully. "He's clearly hurting a lot" she said. "Do you know where he might be in pain?"

"Well, based on the preliminary test results, it is likely that there is inflammation around his brain and spinal cord. If that's the case, imagine having the worst hangover of your life, and it's likely that that's what he's been going through constantly. I've had cases where, even for a few weeks after they leave the hospital, they're still in pain".

"That is brutal" Ashley replied. "Will that happen to my Lucas?"

"It's hard to say" said the doctor. "The good news is that we did catch it early, so, assuming that it _is_ a bacterial infection, there shouldn't be any complications. The bad news is that this infection is quite nasty in someone as young as Lucas is".

It was clear that, even if the Collingsworths were filthy rich, Ashley cared deeply for her son, and it hurt her to see him in such pain. Perhaps, I figured, not all rich people were horrible; some of them, perhaps many of them, cared deeply for their family and friends.

 _Perhaps one can look at this as a scary story,_ I thought. _Or maybe it's just an example of the absoluteness of a mother's love for her son._

I tried to remember what the name for the disease Lucas most likely had was. I was pretty sure it started with an "M", but the name eluded me.

 _Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter,_ I thought. _He's probably in so much pain right now, I can't even imagine. I mean, there's swelling AROUND HIS BRAIN._

"I see" Ashley said eventually. "Poor guy. He hasn't been able to get any sleep since he's been here. I don't think he likes the hospital".

The doctor gave a wry smile. "I don't think he'd like being dead, either. Fortunately, it doesn't look like his case is too dangerous, but we'll keep him on the antibiotics for just a little longer, just in case".

"Precautions are always good, especially when it's a medical emergency" Ashley replied.

"Exactly. Here, we take no chances".

After that, the doctor left the room, and Ashley was alone.

She looked outside the window, and I could see the pain in her eyes. All she wanted was for her son to be well. She was holding onto him for dear life as he continued wailing in agony, and it was clear to see that nothing in the world would convince her to let him go.

* * *

 **The reason this was an emotional chapter for me to write is because the latter half, the flashback, is based on something that did actually happen to me when I was an infant. I contracted viral meningitis and required hospitalization at the local children's hospital. All of the things that happened to Lucas and Ashley in this flashback pretty much happened to me and my mother. I have no memory of it, of course; those are all things I was told later.**

 **I even remember how I found out; when I was 10 years old or so, I went through a phase when I was very interested in diseases (a phase I may still be in at 18), and I asked my mother if I'd ever gotten anything serious. She said, "Yes, you got viral meningitis when you were six weeks old".**

 **I also posted to r/CasualConversation under the name SkyClubba (that's my Reddit handle) and told that story. Thanks to everyone who has commented or will comment on it.**

 **In any case, you didn't come here for a personal story. I hope you will review and tell me what you thought of this chapter. See you guys next time!**


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